Queechy, Volume II

by Susan Warner

"COMMIT THY WORKS UNTO THE LORD, AND ALL THY THOUGHTS SHALL BE ESTABLISHED."

"IN ALL THY WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM: HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS."

Assurances, not, indeed, that her plans should meet with success, but that they should have the issue best for them.

She was early, but the room was warm, and in order, and the servant had left it. Fleda sought out paper and pencil, and sat down to fashion the form of an advertisement the first thing to be done. She had no notion how difficult a thing, till she came to do it.

"R. R. is entreated to communicate with his niece at the old place in Bleecker Street, on business of the greatest importance."

"It will not do," said Fleda, to herself, as she sat and looked at it "there is not enough to catch his eye, and there is too much, if it caught anybody else's eye 'R. R.', and 'his niece,' and 'Bleecker Street,' that would tell plain enough."

"Dear uncle, F. has followed you here on business of the greatest importance. Pray let her see you; she is at the old place."

"It will not do," thought Fleda, again "there is still less to catch his eye I cannot trust it. And if I were to put 'Queechy' over it, that would give the clue to the Evelyns, and everybody. But I had better risk anything rather than his seeing it."

The miserable needlessness of the whole thing, the pitiful weighing of sorrow against sorrow, and shame against shame, overcame her for a little; and then, dashing away the tears she had no time for, and locking up the strong-box of her heart, she took her pencil again.

"Queechy. "Let me see you at the old place. I have come here on urgent business for you. Do not deny me, for H's sake!"

With a trifle of alteration, she thought this would do; and went on to make a number of fair copies of it for so many papers. This was done, and all traces of it out of the way before Mrs. Pritchard came in and the breakfast; and after bracing herself with coffee, though the good housekeeper was still sadly dissatisfied with her indifference to some more substantial brace in the shape of chickens and ham, Fleda prepared herself inwardly and outwardly to brave the wind and the newspaper offices, and set forth. It was a bright, keen day; she was sorry; she would it had been cloudy. It seemed as if she could not hope to escape some eyes in such an atmosphere.

She went to the library first, and there requested the librarian, whom she knew, to bring her from the reading-room the files of morning and evening papers. They were many more than she had supposed; she had not near advertisements enough. Paper and ink were at hand, however, and making carefully her list of the various offices, morning and evening separate, she wrote out a copy of the notice for each of them.

The morning was well on by the time she could leave the library. It was yet far from the fashionable hour, however, and sedulously shunning the recognition of anybody, in hopes that it would be one step towards her escaping theirs, she made her way down the bright thoroughfare as far as the City Hall, and then crossed over the Park and plunged into a region where it was very little likely she would see a face that she knew. She saw nothing else either that she knew; in spite of having studied the map of the city in the library, she was forced several times to ask her way, as she visited office after office, of the evening papers first, till she had placed her notice with each one of them. Her courage almost failed her her heart did quite, after two or three. It was a trial from which her whole nature shrank, to go among the people, to face the eyes, to exchange talk with the lips that were at home in those purlieus; look at them she did not. Making her slow way through the choked narrow streets, where the mere confusion of business was bewildering very, to any one come from Queechy; among crowds, of what mixed and doubtful character, hurrying along and brushing with little ceremony past her; edging by loitering groups that filled the whole sidewalk, or perhaps edging through them groups whose general type of character was sufficiently plain and _un_mixed; entering into parley with clerk after clerk, who looked at such a visitor as an anomaly poor Fleda almost thought so too, and shrank within herself; venturing hardly her eyes beyond her thick veil, and shutting her ears resolutely as far as possible to all the dissonant rough voices that helped to assure her she was where she ought not to be. Sometimes she felt that it was impossible to go on and finish her task; but a thought or two nerved her again to plunge into another untried quarter, or make good her entrance to some new office through a host of loungers and waiting newsboys collected round the door. Sometimes, in utter discouragement, she went on and walked to a distance and came back, in the hope of a better opportunity. It was a long business; and she often had to wait. The end of her list was reached at last, and the paper was thrown away; but she did not draw free breath till she had got to the west side of Broadway again, and turned her back upon them all.

It was late then, and the street was thinned of a part of its gay throng. Completely worn in body as well as mind, with slow faltering steps, Fleda moved on among those still left; looking upon them with a curious eye, as if they and she belonged to different classes of beings; so very far her sobered and saddened spirit seemed to herself from their stir of business and gaiety; if they had been a train of lady-flies or black ants, Fleda would hardly have felt that she had less in common with them. It was a weary, long way up to Bleecker Street, as she was forced to travel it.

The relief was unspeakable to find herself within her uncle's door, with the sense that her dreaded duty was done, and well and thoroughly. Now her part was to be still and wait. But with the relief came also a reaction from the strain of the morning. Before her weary feet had well mounted the stairs, her heart gave up its control; and she locked herself in her room to yield to a helpless outpouring of tears which she was utterly unable to restrain, though conscious that long time could not pass before she would be called to dinner. Dinner had to wait.

"Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, in a vexed tone, when the meal was half over "I didn't know you ever did anything wrong."

"You were sadly mistaken, Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda, half lightly, half sadly.

"You're looking not a bit better than last night, and, if anything, rather worse," Mrs. Pritchard went on. "It isn't right, Miss Fleda. You oughtn't to ha' set the first step out of doors, I know you oughtn't, this blessed day; and you've been on your feet these seven hours and you show it! You're just ready to drop."

"I will rest to-morrow," said Fleda, "or try to."

"You are fit for nothing but bed," said the housekeeper "and you've been using yourself, Miss Fleda, as if you had the strength of an elephant. Now, do you think you've been doing right?"

Fleda would have made some cheerful answer, but she was not equal to it; she had lost all command of herself, and she dropped knife and fork to burst into a flood of exceeding tears. Mrs. Pritchard, equally astonished and mystified, hurried questions, apologies, and consolations, one upon another; and made up her mind that there was something mysterious on foot, about which she had better ask no questions. Neither did she from that time. She sealed up her mouth, and contented herself with taking the best care of her guest that she possibly could. Needed enough, but all of little avail.

The reaction did not cease with that day. The next Sunday was spent on the sofa, in a state of utter prostration. With the necessity for exertion the power had died. Fleda could only lie upon the cushions and sleep helplessly, while Mrs. Pritchard sat by, anxiously watching her; curiosity really swallowed up in kind feeling. Monday was little better; but towards the after part of the day, the stimulant of anxiety began to work again, and Fleda sat up to watch for a word from her uncle. But none came, and Tuesday morning distressed Mrs. Pritchard with its want of amendment. It was not to be hoped for, Fleda knew, while this fearful watching lasted. Her uncle might not have seen the advertisement he might not have got her letter he might be even then setting sail to quit home for ever. And she could do nothing but wait. Her nerves were alive to every stir; every touch of the bell made her tremble; it was impossible to read, to lie down, to be quiet or still anywhere. She had set the glass of expectancy, for one thing, in the distance: and all things else were a blur or a blank.

They had sat down to dinner that Tuesday, when a ring at the door, which had made her heart jump, was followed yes, it was by the entrance of the maid-servant holding a folded bit of paper in her hand. Fleda did not wait to ask whose it was she seized it and saw and sprang away up stairs. It was a sealed scrap of paper, that had been the back of a letter, containing two lines without signature.

"I will meet you at Dinah's if you come there alone about sundown."

Enough! Dinah was an old black woman who once had been a very attached servant in Mr. Rossitur's family, and, having married and become a widow years ago, had set up for herself in the trade of a washerwoman, occupying an obscure little tenement out towards Chelsea. Fleda had rather a shadowy idea of the locality, though remembering very well sundry journeys of kindness she and Hugh had made to it in days gone by. But she recollected it was in Sloman Street, and she knew she could find it; and dropping upon her knees, poured out thanks too deep to be uttered, and too strong to be even thought, without a convulsion of tears. Her dinner after that was but a mental thanksgiving she was hardly conscious of anything beside and a thankful rejoicing for all her weary labours. Their weariness was sweet to her now. Let her but see him the rest was sure.

CHAPTER XV.

"How well appaid she was her bird to find!"
SIDNEY.

Fleda counted the minutes till it wanted an hour of sundown, and then, avoiding Mrs. Pritchard, made her escape out of the house. A long walk was before her, and the latter part of it through a region which she wished to pass while the light was good. And she was utterly unable to travel at any but a very gentle rate; so she gave herself plenty of time.

It was a very bright afternoon, and all the world was astir. Fleda shielded herself with a thick veil, and went up one of the narrow streets, not daring to venture into Broadway, and passing Waverly Place, which was almost as bright, turned down Eighth Street. A few blocks now, and she would be out of all danger of meeting any one that knew her. She drew her veil close, and hurried on. But the proverb saith, "A miss is as good as a mile," and with reason; for if fate wills, the chances make nothing. As Fleda set her foot down to cross Fifth Avenue, she saw Mr. Carleton on the other side coming up from Waverly Place. She went as slowly as she dared, hoping that he would pass without looking her way, or be unable to recognize her through her thick wrapper. In vain she soon saw that she was known he was waiting for her, and she must put up her veil and speak to him.

"Why, I thought you had left New York," said he "I was told so."

"I had left it I have left it, Sir," said Fleda "I have only come back for a day or two."

"Have you been ill?" he said, with a sudden change of tone, the light in his eye, and smile, giving place to a very marked gravity.

Fleda would have answered with a half smile, but such a sickness of heart came over her, that speech failed, and she was very near bursting into tears. Mr. Carleton looked at her earnestly a moment, and then put the hand which Fleda had forgotten he still held upon his arm, and began to walk forward gently with her. Something in the grave tenderness with which this was done, reminded Fleda irresistibly of the times when she had been a child under his care; and, somehow, her thoughts went off on a tangent back to the further days of her mother, and father, and grandfather, the other friends from whom she had had the same gentle protection, which now there was no one in the world to give her. And their images did never seem more winning fair than just then when their place was left most especially empty. Her uncle she had never looked up to in the same way, and whatever stay he had been was cut down. Her aunt leaned upon her; and Hugh had always been more of a younger than an elder brother. The quick contrast of those old happy childish days was too strong; the glance back at what she had had, made her feel the want. Fleda blamed herself, reasoned and fought with herself; but she was weak in mind and body, her nerves were unsteady yet, her spirits unprepared for any encounter or reminder of pleasure; and though vexed and ashamed, she could not hold her head up, and she could not prevent tear after tear from falling as they went along; she could only hope that nobody saw them.

Nobody spoke of them. But then nobody said anything; and the silence at last frightened her into rousing herself. She checked her tears and raised her head; she ventured no more; she dared not turn her face towards her companion. He looked at her once or twice, as if in doubt whether to speak or not.

"Are you not going beyond your strength?" he said at length, gently.

Fleda said, "No," although in a tone that half confessed his suspicion. He was silent again, however, and she cast about in vain for something to speak of; it seemed to her that all subjects of conversation in general had been packed up for exportation; neither eye nor memory could light upon a single one. Block after block was passed, the pace at which he walked, and the manner of his care for her, alone showing that he knew what a very light hand was resting upon his arm.

"How pretty the curl of blue smoke is from that chimney," he said.

It was said with a tone so carelessly easy, that Fleda's heart jumped for one instant in the persuasion that he had seen and noticed nothing peculiar about her.

"I know it," she said, eagerly "I have often thought of it especially here in the city "

"Why is it? what is it?"

Fleda's eye gave one of its exploratory looks at his, such as he remembered from years ago, before she spoke.

"Isn't it contrast? or at least I think that helps the effect here."

"What do you make the contrast?" he said, quietly.

"Isn't it," said Fleda, with another glance, "the contrast of something pure and free and upward-tending, with what is below it? I did not mean the mere painter's contrast. In the country, smoke is more picturesque, but in the city I think it has more character."

"To how many people do you suppose it ever occurred that smoke had a character?" said he, smiling.

"You are laughing at me, Mr. Carleton; perhaps I deserve it."

"You do not think that," said he, with a look that forbade her to think it. "But I see you are of Lavater's mind, that everything has a physiognomy?"

"I think he was perfectly right," said Fleda. "Don't you, Mr.
Carleton?"

"To some people, yes! But the expression is so subtle, that only very nice sensibilities, with fine training, can hope to catch it; therefore, to the mass of the world Lavater would talk nonsense."

"That is a gentle hint to me. But if I talk nonsense, I wish you would set me right, Mr. Carleton; I am very apt to amuse myself with tracing out fancied analogies in almost everything, and I may carry it too far too far to be spoken of wisely. I think it enlarges the field of pleasure very much. Where one eye is stopped, another is but invited on."

"So," said Mr. Carleton, "while that puff of smoke would lead one person's imagination only down the chimney to the kitchen fire, it would take another's where did yours go?" said he, suddenly turning round upon her.

Fleda met his eye again, without speaking; but her look had, perhaps, more than half revealed her thought, for she was answered with a smile so intelligent and sympathetic, that she was abashed.

"How very much religion heightens the enjoyments of life!" Mr.
Carleton said, after a while.

Fleda's heart throbbed an answer she did not speak.

"Both in its direct and indirect action. The mind is set free from influences that narrowed its range and dimmed its vision, and refined to a keener sensibility, a juster perception, a higher power of appreciation, by far, than it had before. And then, to say nothing of religion's own peculiar sphere of enjoyment, technically religious what a field of pleasure it opens to its possessor in the world of moral beauty, most partially known to any other and the fine but exquisite analogies of things material with things spiritual those harmonies of Nature, to which, talk as they will, all other ears are deaf."

"You know," said Fleda, with full eyes that she dared not show, "how Henry Martyn said that he found he enjoyed painting and music so much more after he became a Christian."

"I remember. It is the substituting a just medium for a false one it is putting nature within and nature without in tune with each other, so that the chords are perfect now which were jarring before."

"And yet how far people would be from believing you, Mr.
Carleton."

"Yes, they are possessed with the contrary notion. But in all the creation nothing has a one-sided usefulness. What a reflection it would be upon the wisdom of its Author, if godliness alone were the exception if it were not 'profitable for the life that now is, as well as for that which is to come!' "

"They make that work the other way, don't they?" said Fleda; "not being able to see how thorough religion should be for anybody's happiness, they make use of your argument to conclude that it is not what the Bible requires. How I have heard that urged that God intended his creatures to be happy as a reason why they should disobey him! They lay hold on the wrong end of the argument, and work backwards."

"Precisely.

" 'God intended his creatures to be happy.
" 'Strict obedience would make them unhappy.
" 'Therefore, he does not intend them to obey.' "

"They never put it before them quite so clearly," said Fleda.

"They would startle at it a little. But so they would at the right stating of the case."

"And how would that be, Mr. Carleton?"

"It might be somewhat after this fashion

" 'God requires nothing that is not for the happiness of his
people.
" 'He requires perfect obedience.
" 'Therefore, perfect obedience is for their happiness.'

"But unbelief will not understand that. Did it ever strike you how much there is in those words, 'Come and see?' All that argument can do, after all, is but to persuade to that. Only faith will submit to terms, and enter the narrow gate; and only obedience knows what the prospect is on the other side."

"But isn't it true, Mr. Carleton, that the world have some cause for their opinion judging as they do by the outside? The peculiar pleasures of religion, as you say, are out of sight, and they do not always find in religious people that enlargement and refinement of which you were speaking."

"Because they make unequal comparisons. Recollect that, as God has declared, the ranks of religion are not for the most part filled from the wise and the great. In making your estimate, you must measure things equal in other respects. Compare the same man with himself before he was a Christian, or with his unchristianized fellows, and you will find invariably the refining, dignifying, ennobling, influence of true religion the enlarged intelligence, and the greater power of enjoyment."

"And besides those causes of pleasure-giving that your mentioned," said Fleda, "there is a mind at ease; and how much that is, alone! If I may judge others by myself, the mere fact of being unpoised, unresting, disables the mind from a thousand things that are joyfully relished by one entirely at ease."

"Yes," said he; "do you remember that word, 'The stones of the field shall be at peace with thee?' "

"I am afraid people would understand you as little as they would me, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, laughing.

He smiled, rather a prolonged smile, the expression of which Fleda could not make out; she felt that she did not quite understand him.

"I have thought," said he, after a pause, "that much of the beauty we find in many things is owing to a hidden analogy the harmony they make with some unknown string of the mind's harp which they have set a-vibrating. But the music of that is so low and soft, that one must listen very closely to find out what it is."

"Why, that is the very theory of which I gave you a smoky illustration a little while ago," said Fleda. "I thought I was on safe ground, after what you said about the characters of flowers, for that was a little "

"Fanciful?" said he, smiling.

"What you please,"' said Fleda, colouring a little "I am sure it is true. The theory, I mean. I have many a time felt it, though I never put it in words. I shall think of that."

"Did you ever happen to see the very early dawn of a winter's morning?" said he.

But he laughed the next instant at the comical expression of
Fleda's face as it was turned to him.

"Forgive me for supposing you as ignorant as myself. I have seen it once."

"Appreciated it, I hope, that time?" said Fleda.

"I shall never forget it."

"And it never wrought in you a desire to see it again?"

"I might see many a dawn," said he, smiling, "without what I saw then. It was very early, and a cloudy morning, so that night had still almost undisturbed possession of earth and sky; but in the south-eastern quarter, between two clouds, there was a space of fair white promise, hardly making any impression upon the darkness, but only set off by it. And upon this one bright spot in earth or heaven, rode the planet of the morning the sun's forerunner bright upon the brightness. All else was dusky, except where overhead the clouds had parted again and showed a faint old moon, glimmering down upon the night it could no longer be said to 'rule.' "

"Beautiful!" said Fleda. "There is hardly any time I like so well as the dawn of a winter morning, with an old moon in the sky. Summer weather has no beauty like it in some things."

"Once," continued Mr. Carleton, "I should have seen no more than I have told you the beauty that every cultivated eye must take in. But now, methought I saw the dayspring that has come upon a longer night; and from out of the midst of it there was the fair face of the morning star looking at me with its sweet reminder and invitation; looking over the world with its aspect of triumphant expectancy: there was its calm assurance of the coming day its promise that the star of hope, which now there were only a few watching eyes to see, should presently be followed by the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness making the kingdoms of the world His own. Your memory may bring to you the words that came to mine, the promise 'to him that overcometh,' and the beauty of the lips that made it: the encouragement to 'patient continuance in well doing,' 'till the day break, and the shadows flee away.' And there, on the other hand, was the substituted light of earth's wisdom and inventions, dominant yet, but waning, and soon to be put out for ever."

Fleda was crying again, and perhaps that was the reason why Mr. Carleton was silent for some time. She was very sorry to show herself so weak, but she could not help it; part of his words had come too close. And when she had recovered again, she was absolutely silent too, for they were nearing Sloman- street, and she could not take him there with her. She did not know what to say, nor what he would think; and she said not another word till they came to the corner. There she must stop and speak.

"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Carleton," she said, drawing her hand from his arm, "for taking care of me all this disagreeable way; I will not give you any more trouble."

"You are not going to dismiss me?" said he, looking at her with a countenance of serious anxiety.

"I must," said Fleda, ingenuously "I have business to attend to here "

"But you will let me have the pleasure of waiting for you?"

"O no," said Fleda, hesitating and flushing "thank you, Mr. Carleton; but pray do not I don't know at all how long I may be detained."

He bowed, she thought gravely, and turned away; and she entered the little wretched street, with a strange feeling of pain that she could not analyze. She did not know where it came from, but she thought if there only had been a hiding- place for her, she could have sat down and wept a whole heartful. The feeling must be kept back now, and it was soon forgotten in the throbbing of her heart at another thought which took entire possession.

The sun was not down there was time enough but it was with a step and eye of hurried anxiety that Fleda passed along the little street, for fear of missing her quest, or lest Dinah should have changed her domicile. Yet would her uncle have named it for their meeting if he had not been sure of it? It was very odd he should have appointed that place at all, and Fleda was inclined to think he must have seen Dinah by some chance, or it never would have come into his head. Still her eye passed unheeding over all the varieties of dinginess and misery in her way, intent only upon finding that particular dingy cellar-way which used to admit her to Dinah's premises. It was found at last, and she went in.

The old woman, herself most unchanged, did not know the young lady, but well remembered the little girl whom Fleda brought to her mind. And then she was overjoyed to see her, and asked a multitude of questions, and told a long story of her having met Mr. Rossitur in the street the other day, "in the last place where she'd have looked to see him;" and how old he had grown, and how surprised she had been to see the gray hairs in his head. Fleda at last gave her to understand that she expected him to meet her there, and would like to see him alone; and the good woman immediately took her work into another apartment, made up the fire, and set up the chairs, and leaving her, assured Fleda she would lock up the doors, "and not let no one come through."

It was sundown, and later, Fleda thought, and she felt as if every pulse was doing double duty. No matter, if she were shattered and the work done. But what work! Oh, the needlessness, the cruelty, the folly of it! And how much of the ill consequences she might be unable, after all, to ward off. She took off her hat, to relieve a nervous smothered feeling; and walked, and sat down; and then sat still, from trembling inability to do anything else. Dinah's poor little room, clean though it was, looked to her the most dismal place in the world, from its association with her errand; she hid her face on her knees, that she might have no disagreeableness to contend with, but that which could not be shut out.

It had lain there some time, till a sudden feeling of terror at the growing lateness made her raise it to look at the window. Mr. Rossitur was standings still before her he must have come in very softly and looking oh, Fleda had not imagined him looking so changed. All was forgotten the wrong, and the needlessness, and the indignation with which she had sometimes thought of it; Fleda remembered nothing but love and pity, and threw herself upon his neck with such tears of tenderness and sympathy, such kisses of forgiveness and comfort-speaking, as might have broken a stouter heart than Mr. Rossitur's. He held her in his arms for a few minutes, passively suffering her caresses, and then gently unloosing her hold, placed her on a seat, sat down a little way off, covered his face and groaned aloud.

Fleda could not recover herself at once. Then shaking off her agitation, she came and knelt down by his side, and putting one arm over his shoulders, laid her cheek against his forehead. Words were beyond reach, but his forehead was wet with her tears; and kisses, of soft entreaty, of winning assurance, said all she could say.

"What did you come here for, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur, at length, without changing his position.

"To bring you home, uncle Rolf."

"Home!" said he, with an accent between bitterness and despair.

"Yes, for it's all over, it's all forgotten there is no more to be said about it at all," said Fleda, getting her words out she didn't know how.

What is forgotten?" said he, harshly.

"All that you would wish, Sir," replied Fleda, softly and gently; "there is no more to be done about it; and I came to tell you, if possible, before it was too late. Oh, I'm so glad!" and her arms and her cheek pressed closer, as fresh tears stopped her voice.

"How do you know, Fleda?" said Mr. Rossitur, raising his head, and bringing hers to his shoulder, while his arms in turn enclosed her.

Fleda whispered, "He told me so himself."

"Who?"

"Mr. Thorn."

The words were but just spoken above her breath. Mr. Rossitur was silent for some time.

"Are you sure you understood him?"

"Yes, Sir; it could not have been spoken plainer."

"Are you quite sure he meant what he said, Fleda?"

"Perfectly sure, uncle Rolf! I know he did."

"What stipulation did he make beforehand?"

"He did it without any stipulation, Sir."

"What was his inducement, then? If I know him, he is not a man to act without any."

Fleda's cheek was dyed, but except that, she gave no other answer.

"Why has it been left so long?" said her uncle, presently.

"I don't know, Sir he said nothing about that. He promised that neither we nor the world should hear anything more of it."

"The world!" said Mr. Rossitur.

"No, Sir; he said that only one or two persons had any notion of it, and that their secrecy he had the means of securing."

"Did he tell you anything more?"

"Only that he had the matter entirely under his control, and that never a whisper of it should be heard again. No promise could be given more fully and absolutely."

Mr. Rossitur drew a long breath, speaking to Fleda's ear very great relief, and was silent.

"And what reward is he to have for this, Fleda?" he said, after some musing.

"All that my hearty thanks and gratitude can give, as far as I am concerned, Sir."

"Is that what he expects, Fleda?"

"I cannot help what he expects," said Fleda, in some distress.

"What have you engaged yourself to, my child?"

"Nothing in the world, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda, earnestly "nothing in the world. I haven't engaged myself to anything. The promise was made freely, without any sort of stipulation."

Mr. Rossitur looked thoughtful and disquieted. Fleda's tears were pouring again.

"I will not trust him," he said; "I will not stay in the country!"

"But you will come home, uncle?" said Fleda, terrified.

"Yes, my dear child yes, my dear child!" he said, tenderly, putting his arms round Fleda again, and kissing, with an earnestness of acknowledgment that went to her heart, her lips and brow; "you shall do what you will with me; and when I go, we will all go together."

From Queechy? from America? But she had no time for that thought now.

"You said, 'for Hugh's sake,' " Mr. Rossitur observed, after a pause, and with some apparent difficulty; "what of him?"

"He is not well, uncle Rolf," said Fleda; "and I think the best medicine will be the sight of you again."

Mr. Rossitur looked pale, and was silent a moment.

"And my wife?" he said.

His face, and the thought of those faces at home, were too much for Fleda; she could not help it. "Oh, uncle Rolf," she said, hiding her face, "they only want to see you again now!"

Mr. Rossitur leaned his head in his hands and groaned; and
Fleda could but cry; she felt there was nothing to say.

"It was for Marion," he said at length; "it was when I was hard pressed, and I was fearful if it were known that it might ruin her prospects. I wanted that miserable sum only four thousand dollars that fellow Schwiden asked to borrow it of me for a few days, and to refuse would have been to confess all. I dared not try my credit, and I just madly took that step that proved irretrievable. I counted at the moment upon funds that were coming to me only the next week sure, I thought, as possible but the man cheated me, and our embarrassments thickened from that time; that thing has been a weight oh, a weight of deadening power! round my neck ever since. I have died a living death these six years!"

"I know it, dear uncle I know it all!" said Fleda, bringing the sympathizing touch of her cheek to his again. "The good that it did has been unspeakably overbalanced by the evil. Even long ago I knew that."

"The good that it did!" It was no time then to moralize, but he must know that Marion was at home, or he might incautiously reveal to her what happily there was no necessity for her ever knowing. And the story must give him great and fresh pain.

"Dear uncle Rolf," said Fleda, pressing closer to him "we may be happier than we have been in a long time, if you will only take it so. The cloud upon you has been a cloud upon us."

"I know it!" he exclaimed "a cloud that served to show me that my jewels were diamonds!"

"You have an accession to your jewels, uncle Rolf."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Fleda, trembling, "that there are two more at home."

He held her back to look at her.

"Can't you guess who?"

"No!" said he. "What do you mean?"

"I must tell you, because they know nothing, and needn't know, of all this matter."

"What are you talking about?"

"Marion is there!"

"Marion!" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, with quick changes of expression "Marion! At Queechy! and her husband?"

"No, Sir a dear little child."

"Marion! and her husband where is he?"

Fleda hesitated.

"I don't know I don't know whether she knows."

"Is he dead?"

"No, Sir."

Mr. Rossitur put her away, and got up and walked, or strode up and down the little apartment. Fleda dared not look at him, even by the faint glimmer that came from the chimney.

But abroad it was perfectly dark the stars were shining, the only lamps that illumined the poor little street, and for a long time there had been no light in the room but that of the tiny wood fire. Dinah never could be persuaded of the superior cheapness of coal. Fleda came at last to her uncle's side, and putting her arm within his, said

"How soon will you set off for home, uncle Rolf?"

"To-morrow morning."

"You must take the boat to Bridgeport now you know the river is fast."

"Yes, I know."

"Then I will meet you at the wharf, uncle Rolf at what o'clock?"

"My dear child," said he, stopping and passing his hand tenderly over her cheek, "are you fit for it to-morrow? You had better stay where you are quietly for a few days you want rest."

"No, I will go home with you," said Fleda, "and rest there. But hadn't we better let Dinah in, and bid her good-bye? for I ought to be somewhere else to get ready."

Dinah was called, and a few kind words spoken, and with a more substantial remembrance, or reward, from Fleda's hand, they left her.

Fleda had the support of her uncle's arm till they came within sight of the house, and then he stood and watched her while she went the rest of the way alone.

Anything more white and spirit-looking, and more spirit-like, in its purity and peacefulness surely did not walk that night. There was music in her ear, and abroad in the star-light, more ethereal than Ariel's; but she knew where it came from it was the chimes of her heart that were ringing; and never a happier peal, nor ever had the mental atmosphere been more clear for their sounding. Thankfulness that was the oftenest note swelling thankfulness for her success joy for herself and for the dear ones at home generous delight at having been the instrument of their relief the harmonies of pure affections, without any grating now the hope, well grounded she thought, of improvement in her uncle, and better times for them all a childlike peace that was at rest with itself and the world these were mingling and interchanging their music, and again and again, in the midst of it all, faith rang the last chime in heaven.

CHAPTER XVI.

"As some lone bird at day's departing hour
Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower,
Forgetful though its wings are wet the while."
BOWLES.

Happily possessed with the notion that there was some hidden mystery in Fleda's movements, Mrs. Pritchard said not a word about her having gone out, and only spoke in looks her pain at the imprudence of which she had been guilty. But when Fleda asked to have a carriage ordered to take her to the boat in the morning, the good housekeeper could not hold any longer.

"Miss Fleda," said she, with a look of very serious remonstrance "I don't know what you're thinking of, but I know you're fixing to kill yourself. You are no more fit to go to Queechy to-morrow than you were to be out till seven o'clock this evening; and if you saw yourself, you wouldn't want me to say any more. There is not the least morsel of colour in your face, and you look as if you had a mind to get rid of your body altogether as fast as you can! You want to be in bed for two days running, now this minute."

"Thank you, dear Mrs. Pritchard," said Fleda, smiling "you are very careful of me, but I must go home to-morrow, and go to bed afterwards."

The housekeeper looked at her a minute in silence, and then said, "Don't, dear Miss Fleda!" with an energy of entreaty, which brought the tears into Fleda's eyes. But she persisted in desiring the carriage, and Mrs. Pritchard was silenced, observing, however, that she shouldn't wonder if she wasn't able to go, after all. Fleda herself was not without a doubt on the subject before the evening was over. The reaction, complete now, began to make itself felt, and morning settled the question. She was not able even to rise from her bed.

The housekeeper was, in a sort, delighted; and Fleda was in too passive a mood of body and mind to have any care on the subject. The agitation of the past days had given way to an absolute quiet, that seemed as if nothing could ever ruffle it again, and this feeling was seconded by the extreme prostration of body. She was a mere child in the hands of her nurse, and had, Mrs. Pritchard said, "if she wouldn't mind her telling the sweetest baby-face that ever had so much sense belonging to it."

The morning was half spent in dozing slumbers, when Fleda heard a rush of footsteps, much lighter and sprightlier than good Mrs. Pritchard's, coming up the stairs, and pattering along the entry to her room, and, with little ceremony, in rushed Florence and Constance Evelyn. They almost smothered Fleda with their delighted caresses, and ran so hard their questions about her looks and her illness, that she was well nigh spared the trouble of answering.

"You horrid little creature!" said Constance, "why didn't you come straight to our house? Just think of the injurious suspicions you have exposed us to! to say nothing of the extent of fiction we have found ourselves obliged to execute. I didn't expect it of you, little Queechy."

Fleda kept her pale face quiet on the pillow, and only smiled her incredulous curiosity.

"But when did you come back, Fleda?" said Miss Evelyn.

"We should never have known a breath about your being here," Constance went on. "We were sitting last night, in peaceful unconsciousness of there being any neglected calls upon our friendship in the vicinity, when Mr. Carleton came in and asked for you. Imagine our horror! We said you had gone out early in the afternoon, and had not returned."

"You didn't say that!" said Fleda, colouring.

"And he remarked at some length," said Constance, "upon the importance of young ladies having some attendance when they are out late in the evening, and that you in particular were one of those persons he didn't say, but he intimated, of a slightly volatile disposition whom their friends ought not to lose sight of."

"But what brought you to town again, Fleda " said the elder sister.

"What makes you talk so, Constance?" said Fleda.

"I haven't told you the half!" said Constance, demurely. "And then mamma excused herself as well as she could, and Mr. Carleton said, very seriously, that he knew there was a great element of headstrongness in your character; he had remarked it, he said, when you were arguing with Mr. Stackpole."

"Constance, be quiet!" said her sister. "Will you tell me, Fleda, what you have come to town for? I am dying with curiosity."

"Then it's inordinate curiosity, and ought to be checked, my dear," said Fleda, smiling.

"Tell me."

"I came to take care of some business that could not very well be attended to at a distance."

"Who did you come with?"

"One of our Queechy neighbours that I heard was coming to New
York."

"Wasn't your uncle at home?"

"Of course not. If he had been, there would have been no need of my stirring."

"But was there nobody else to do it but you?"

"Uncle Orrin away, you know; and Charlton down at his post Fort Hamilton, is it? I forget which fort he is fast there."

"He is not so very fast," said Constance, "for I see him every now and then in Broadway, shouldering Mr. Thorn instead of a musket; and he has taken up the distressing idea that it is part of his duty to oversee the progress of Florence's worsted-work (I've made over that horrid thing to her, Fleda) or else his precision has been struck with the anomaly of blue stars on a white ground, and he is studying that I don't know which; and so every few nights he rushes over from Governor's Island, or somewhere, to prosecute inquiries. Mamma is quite concerned about him; she says he is wearing himself out."

The mixture of amusement, admiration, and affection, with which the other sister looked at her, and laughed with her was a pretty thing to see.

"But where is your other cousin Hugh?" said Florence.

"He was not well."

"Where is your uncle?"

"He will be at home to-day, I expect; and so should I have been I meant to be there as soon as he was, but I found this morning that I was not well enough to my sorrow."

"You were not going alone!"

"Oh, no! a friend of ours was going to-day."

"I never saw anybody with so many friends, said Florence. "But you are coming to us now, Fleda. How soon are you going to get up?"

"Oh, by to-morrow," said Fleda, smiling; "but I had better stay where I am the little while I shall be here. I must go home the first minute I can find an opportunity."

"But you sha'n't find an opportunity till we've had you," said Constance. "I'm going to bring a carriage for you this afternoon. I could bear the loss of your friendship, my dear, but not the peril of my own reputation. Mr. Carleton is under the impression that you are suffering from a momentary succession of fainting fits; and if we were to leave you here in an empty house, to come out of them at your leisure, what would he think of us?"

What would he think? Oh, world! Is this it?

But Fleda was not able to be moved in the afternoon; and it soon appeared that nature would take more revenge than a day's sleep for the rough handling she had had the past week. Fleda could not rise from her bed the next morning; and instead of that, a kind of nondescript nervous fever set in, nowise dangerous, but very wearying. She was, nevertheless, extremely glad of it, for it would serve to explain to all her friends the change of look which had astonished them. They would make it now the token of coming, not of past, evil. The rest she took with her accustomed patience and quietness, thankful for everything, after the anxiety and the relief she had just before known.

Dr. Gregory came home from Philadelphia in the height of her attack, and aggravated it for a day or two with the fear of his questioning. But Fleda was surprised at his want of curiosity. He asked her, indeed, what she had come to town for, but her whispered answer of "business," seemed to satisfy him, for he did not inquire what the business was. He did ask her, furthermore, what had made her get sick; but this time he was satisfied more easily still, with a very curious, sweet smile, which was the utmost reply Fleda's wits, at the moment, could frame. "Well, get well," said he, kissing her heartily once or twice, "and I wont quarrel with you about it."

The getting well, however, promised to be a leisurely affair.
Dr. Gregory staid two or three days, and then went on to
Boston, leaving Fleda in no want of him.

Mrs. Pritchard was the tenderest and carefullest of nurses. The Evelyns did everything but nurse her. They sat by her, talked to her, made her laugh, and not seldom made her look sober too, with their wild tales of the world and the world's doings. But they were indeed very affectionate and kind, and Fleda loved them for it. If they wearied her sometimes with their talk, it was a change from the weariness of fever and silence that on the whole was useful.

She was quieting herself one morning, as well as she could, in the midst of both, lying with shut eyes against her pillow, and trying to fix her mind on pleasant things, when she heard Mrs. Pritchard open the door and come in. She knew it was Mrs. Pritchard, so she didn't move nor look. But, in a moment, the knowledge that Mrs. Pritchard's feet had stopped just by the bed, and a strange sensation of something delicious saluting her, made her open her eyes; when they lighted upon a huge bunch of violets just before them, and in most friendly neighbourhood to her nose. Fleda started up, and her "Oh!" fairly made the housekeeper laugh; it was the very quintessence of gratification.

"Where did you get them?"

"I didn't get them, indeed, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, gravely, with an immense amount of delighted satisfaction.

"Delicious! Where did they come from?"

"Well, they must have come from a greenhouse, or hothouse, or something of that kind, Miss Fleda these things don't grow nowhere out o' doors at this time."

Mrs. Pritchard guessed Fleda had got the clue, from her quick change of colour and falling eye. There was a quick little smile too; and "How kind!" was upon the end of Fleda's tongue, but it never got any further. Her energies, so far as expression was concerned, seemed to be concentrated in the act of smelling. Mrs. Pritchard stood by.

"They must be put in water," said Fleda "I must have a dish for them Dear Mrs. Pritchard, will you get me one?"

The housekeeper went, smiling to herself. The dish was brought, the violets placed in it, and a little table, at Fleda's request, was set by the side of the bed, close to her pillow, for them to stand upon; and Fleda lay on her pillow and looked at them.

There never were purer-breathed flowers than those. All the pleasant associations of Fleda's life seemed to hang about them, from the time when her childish eyes had first made acquaintance with violets, to the conversation in the library a few days ago; and painful things stood aloof they had no part. The freshness of youth, and the sweetness of spring- time, and all the kindly influences which had ever joined with both to bless her, came back with their blessing in the violets' reminding breath. Fleda shut her eyes and she felt it; she opened her eyes, and the little, double blue things smiled at her good-humouredly, and said, "Here we are you may shut them again." And it was curious how often Fleda gave them a smile back as she did so.

Mrs. Pritchard thought Fleda lived upon the violets that day rather than upon food and medicine; or, at least, she said, they agreed remarkably well together. And the next day it was much the same.

"What will you do when they are withered?" she said, that evening. "I shall have to see and get some more for you."

"Oh, they will last a great while," said Fleda, smiling.

But the next morning Mrs. Pritchard came into her room with a great bunch of roses, the very like of the one Fleda had had at the Evelyns'. She delivered them with a sort of silent triumph, and then, as before, stood by to enjoy Fleda and the flowers together. But the degree of Fleda's wonderment, pleasure, and gratitude, made her reception of them, outwardly at least, this time rather grave.

"You may throw the others away now, Miss Fleda," said the housekeeper, smiling.

"Indeed, I shall not!"

"The violets, I suppose, is all gone," Mrs. Pritchard went on; "but I never did see such a bunch of roses as that since I lived anywhere. They have made a rose of you, Miss Fleda."

"How beautiful!" was Fleda's answer.

"Somebody he didn't say who desired to know particularly how Miss Ringgan was to-day."

"Somebody is very kind!" said Fleda, from the bottom of her heart. "But, dear Mrs. Pritchard, I shall want another dish."

Somebody was kind, she thought more and more; for there came every day or two the most delicious bouquets, every day different. They were at least equal in their soothing and refreshing influences, to all the efforts of all the Evelyns and Mrs. Pritchard put together. There never came any name with them, and there never was any need. Those bunches of flowers certainly had a physiognomy; and to Fleda were (not the flowers, but the choosing, cutting, and putting of them together) the embodiment of an amount of grace, refined feeling, generosity, and kindness, that her imagination never thought of in connection with but one person. And his kindness was answered, perhaps Mrs. Pritchard better than Fleda guessed how well, from the delighted colour and sparkle of the eye with which every fresh arrival was greeted as it walked into her room. By Fleda's order, the bouquets were invariably put out of sight before the Evelyns made their first visit in the morning, and not brought out again till all danger of seeing them any more for the day was past. The regular coming of these floral messengers confirmed Mrs. Pritchard in her mysterious surmises about Fleda, which were still further strengthened by this incomprehensible order; and at last she got so into the spirit of the thing, that if she heard an untimely ring at the door, she would catch up a glass of flowers and run as if they had been contraband, without a word from anybody.

The Evelyns wrote to Mrs. Rossitur, by Fleda's desire, so as not to alarm her; merely saying that Fleda was not quite well, and that they meant to keep her a little while to recruit herself; and that Mrs. Rossitur must send her some clothes. This last clause was the particular addition of Constance.

The fever lasted a fortnight, and then went off by degrees, leaving her with a very small portion of her ordinary strength. Fleda was to go to the Evelyns' as soon as she could bear it; at present she was only able to come down to the little back parlour, and sit in the doctor's arm-chair, and eat jelly, and sleep, and look at Constance, and, when Constance was not there, look at her flowers. She could hardly bear a book as yet. She hadn't a bit of colour in her face, Mrs. Pritchard said, but she looked better than when she came to town; and to herself the good housekeeper added, that she looked happier too. No doubt that was true. Fleda's principal feeling, ever since she lay down in her bed, had been thankfulness; and now that the ease of returning health was joined to this feeling, her face, with all its subdued gravity, was as untroubled in its expression as the faces of her flowers.

She was disagreeably surprised one day, after she had been two or three days down stairs, by a visit from Mrs. Thorn. In her well-grounded dread of seeing one person, Fleda had given strict orders that no gentleman should be admitted; she had not counted upon this invasion. Mrs. Thorn had always been extremely kind to her, but though Fleda gave her credit for thorough good-heartedness, and a true liking for herself, she could not disconnect her attentions from another thought, and therefore always wished them away; and never had her kind face been more thoroughly disagreeable to Fleda than when it made its appearance in the doctor's little back parlour on this occasion. With even more than her usual fondness, or Fleda's excited imagination fancied so, Mrs. Thorn lavished caresses upon her, and finally besought her to go out and take the air in her carriage. Fleda tried most earnestly to get rid of this invitation, and was gently unpersuadable, till the lady at last was brought to promise that she should see no creature during the drive but herself. An ominous promise! but Fleda did not know any longer how to refuse without hurting a person for whom she had really a grateful regard. So she went, and doubted afterwards exceedingly whether she had done well.

She took special good care to see nobody again till she went to the Evelyns'. But then precautions were at an end. It was no longer possible to keep herself shut up. She had cause, poor child, the very first night of her coming, to wish herself back again.

This first evening she would fain have pleaded weakness as her excuse, and gone to her room, but Constance laid violent hands on her, and insisted that she should stay at least a little while with them. And she seemed fated to see all her friends in a bevy. First came Charlton; then followed the Decaturs, whom she knew and liked very well, and engrossed her, happily before her cousin had time to make any inquiries; then came Mr. Carleton; then Mr. Stackpole. Then Mr. Thorn, in expectation of whom Fleda's breath had been coming and going painfully all the evening. She could not meet him without a strange mixture of embarrassment and confusion with the gratitude she wished to express, an embarrassment not at all lessened by the air of happy confidence with which he came forward to her. It carried an intimation that almost took away the little strength she had. And if anything could have made his presence more intolerable, it was the feeling she could not get rid of, that it was the cause why Mr. Carleton did not come near her again, though she prolonged her stay in the drawing-room in the hope that he would. It proved to be for Mr. Thorn's benefit alone.

"Well, you staid all the evening, after all," said Constance, as they were going up stairs.

"Yes I wish I hadn't," said Fleda. "I wonder when I shall be likely to find a chance of getting back to Queechy?"

"You're not fit yet, so you needn't trouble yourself about it," said Constance. "We'll find you plenty of chances."

Fleda could not think of Mr. Thorn without trembling. His manner meant so much more than it had any right, or than she had counted upon. He seemed she pressed her hands upon her face to get rid of the impression he seemed to take for granted precisely that which she had refused to admit; he seemed to reckon as paid for that which she had declined to set a price upon. Her uncle's words and manner came up in her memory. She could see nothing best to do but to get home as fast as possible. She had no one here to fall back upon. Again that vision of father and mother, and grandfather, flitted across her fancy; and though Fleda's heart ended by resting down on that foundation to which it always recurred, it rested with a great many tears.

For several days she denied herself absolutely to morning visitors of every kind. But she could not entirely absent herself from the drawing-room in the evening; and whenever the family were at home there was a regular levee. Mr. Thorn could not be avoided then. He was always there, and always with that same look and manner of satisfied confidence. Fleda was as grave, as silent, as reserved, as she could possibly be, and not be rude; but he seemed to take it in excellent good part, as being half indisposition and half timidity. Fleda set her face earnestly towards home, and pressed Mrs. Evelyn to find her an opportunity, weak or strong, of going there; but for those days as yet none presented itself.

Mr. Carleton was at the house almost as often as Mr. Thorn, seldom staying so long, however, and never having any more to do with Fleda than he had that first evening. Whenever he did come in contact with her, he was, she thought, as grave as he was graceful. That was, to be sure, his common manner in company, yet she could not help thinking there was some difference since the walk they had taken together and it grieved her.

CHAPTER XVII.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft ajee."

After a few days, Charlton verified what Constance had said about his not being very fast at Fort Hamilton, by coming again to see them one morning. Fleda asked him if he could not get another furlough to go with her home, but he declared he was just spending one which was near out; and he could not hope for a third in some time; he must be back at his post by the day after to-morrow.

"When do you want to go, coz?"

"I would to-morrow, if I had anybody to go with me," said
Fleda, sighing.

"No, you wouldn't," said Constance; "you are well enough to go out now, and you forget we are all to make Mrs. Thorn happy to-morrow night."

"I am not," said Fleda.

"Not? you can't help yourself you must; you said you would."

"I did not, indeed."

"Well, then, I said it for you, and that will do just as well. Why, my dear, if you don't just think! the Thorns will be in a state I should prefer to go through a hedge of any description rather than meet the trying demonstrations which will encounter me on every side."

"I am going to Mrs. Decatur's," said Fleda; "she invited me first, and I owe it to her; she has asked me so often and so kindly."

"I shouldn't think you'd enjoy yourself there," said Florence; "they don't talk a bit of English these nights. If I was going, my dear, I would act as your interpreter, but my destiny lies in another direction."

"If I cannot make anybody understand my French, I will get somebody to condescend to my English," said Fleda.

"Why, do you talk French?" was the instant question from both mouths.

"Unless she has forgotten herself strangely," said Charlton. "Talk! she will talk to anybody's satisfaction that happens to differ from her; and I think her tongue cares very little which language it wags in. There is no danger about Fleda's enjoying herself, where people are talking."

Fleda laughed at him, and the Evelyns rather stared at them both.

"But we are all going to Mrs. Thorn's? you can't go alone?"

"I will make Charlton take me," said Fleda; "or rather I will take him, if he will let me. Will you, Charlton? will you take care of me to Mrs. Decatur's to-morrow night?"

"With the greatest pleasure, my dear coz; but I have another engagement in the course of the evening."

"Oh, that is nothing," said Fleda; "if you will only go with me, that is all I care for. You needn't stay but ten minutes. And you can call for me," she added, turning to the Evelyns, "as you come back from Mrs. Thorn's."

To this no objection could be made, and the ensuing raillery
Fleda bore with steadiness at least, if not with coolness; for
Charlton heard it, and she was distressed.

She went to Mrs. Decatur's the next evening in greater elation of spirits than she had known since she left her uncle's; delighted to be missing from the party at Mrs. Thorn's, and hoping that Mr. Lewis would be satisfied with this very plain hint of her mind. A little pleased, too, to feel quite free, alone from too friendly eyes, and ears that had too lively a concern in her sayings and doings. She did not in the least care about going to Mrs. Decatur's; her joy was that she was not at the other place. But there never was elation so outwardly quiet. Nobody would have suspected its existence.

The evening was near half over when Mr. Carleton came in. Fleda had half hoped he would be there, and now immediately hoped she might have a chance to see him alone, and to thank him for his flowers; she had not been able to do that yet. He presently came up to speak to her, just as Charlton, who had found attraction enough to keep him so long, came to tell her he was going.

"You are looking better," said the former, as gravely as ever, but with an eye of serious interest that made the words something.

"I am better," said Fleda, gratefully.

"So much better that she is in a hurry to make herself worse," said her cousin. "Mr. Carleton, you are a professor of medicine, I believe. I have an indistinct impression of your having once prescribed a ride on horseback for somebody; wouldn't you recommend some measure of prudence to her consideration?"

"In general," Mr. Carleton answered, gravely; "but in the present case I could not venture upon any special prescription, Captain Rossitur."

"As, for instance, that she should remain in New York till she is fit to leave it. By the way, what brought you here again in such a hurry, Fleda? I haven't heard that yet."

The question was rather sudden. Fleda was a little taken by surprise. Her face showed some pain and confusion both. Mr. Carleton prevented her answer, she could not tell whether with design.

"What imprudence do you charge your cousin with, Captain
Rossitur?"

"Why, she is in a great hurry to get back to Queechy, before she is able to go anywhere begging me to find an escort for her. It is lucky I can't. I didn't know I ever should be glad to be 'posted up' in this fashion, but I am."

"You have not sought very far, Captain Rossitur," said the voice of Thorn behind him. "Here is one that will be very happy to attend Miss Fleda, whenever she pleases."

Fleda's shocked start and change of countenance was seen by more eyes than one pair. Thorn's fell, and a shade crossed his countenance, too, for an instant, that Fleda's vision was too dazzled to see. Mr. Carleton moved away.

"Why are you going to Queechy?" said Charlton, astonished.

His friend was silent a moment, perhaps for want of power to speak. Fleda dared not look at him.

"It is not impossible unless this lady forbid me. I am not a fixture."

"But what brought you here, man, to offer your services?" said Charlton; "most ungallantly leaving so many pairs of bright eyes to shine upon your absence."

"Mr. Thorn will not find himself in darkness here, Captain
Rossitur," said Mrs. Decatur.

"It's my opinion he ought, Ma'am," said Charlton.

"It is my opinion every man ought, who makes his dependance on gleams of sunshine," said Mr. Thorn, rather cynically. "I cannot say I was thinking of brightness, before or behind me."

"I should think not," said Charlton; "you don't look as if you had seen any in a good while."

"A light goes out every now and then," said Thorn; "and it takes one's eyes some time to get accustomed to it. What a singular world we live in, Mrs. Decatur!"

"That is so new an idea," said the lady, laughing, "that I must request an explanation."

"What new experience of its singularity has your wisdom made?" said his friend. "I thought you and the world knew each other's faces pretty well before."

"Then you have not heard the news?"

"What news?"

"Hum I suppose it is not about, yet," said Thorn, composedly. "No you haven't heard it."

"But what, man?" said Charlton; "let's hear your news, for I must be off."

"Why but it is no more than rumour yet but it is said that strange things are coming to light about a name that used to be held in very high respect."

"In this city?"

"In this city? yes; it is said proceedings are afoot against one of our oldest citizens, on charge of a very grave offence."

"Who and what offence? what do you mean?"

"Is it a secret, Mr. Thorn?" said Mrs. Decatur.

"If you have not heard, perhaps it is as well not to mention names too soon; if it comes out, it will be all over directly; possibly the family may hush it up, and, in that case, the less said the better; but those have it in hand that will not let it slip through their fingers."

Mrs. Decatur turned away, saying, "How shocking such things were!" and Thorn, with a smile which did not, however, light up his face, said

"You may be off, Charlton, with no concern for the bright eyes you leave behind you; I will endeavour to atone for my negligence elsewhere, by my mindfulness of them."

"Don't excuse you," said Charlton; but his eye catching at the moment another attraction opposite in the form of man or woman, instead of quitting the room, he leisurely crossed it to speak to the new-comer; and Thorn, with an entire change of look and manner, pressed forward, and offered his arm to Fleda, who was looking perfectly white. If his words had needed any commentary, it was given by his eye as it met hers, in speaking the last sentence to Mrs. Decatur. No one was near whom she knew, and Mr. Thorn led her out to a little back room where the gentlemen had thrown off their cloaks, where the air was fresher, and placing her on a seat, stood waiting before her till she could speak to him.

"What do you mean, Mr. Thorn?" Fleda looked as much as said, when she could meet his face.

"I may rather ask you what you mean, Miss Fleda," he answered, gravely.

Fleda drew breath painfully.

"I mean nothing," she said, lowering her head again; "I have done nothing."

"Did you think I meant nothing when I agreed to do all you wished?"

"I thought you said you would do it freely," she said, with a tone of voice that might have touched anybody, there was such a sinking of heart in it.

"Didn't you understand me?"

"And is it all over now?" said Fleda, after a pause.

"Not yet; but it soon may be. A weak hand may stop it now it will soon be beyond the power of the strongest."

"And what becomes of your promise that it should no more be heard of?" said Fleda, looking up at him with a colourless face, but eyes that put the question forcibly, nevertheless.

"Is any promise bound to stand without its conditions?"

"I made no conditions," said Fleda, quickly.

"Forgive me! but did you not permit me to understand them?"

"No! or if I did, I could not help it."

"Did you say that you wished to help it?" said he, gently.

"I must say so now, then, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, withdrawing the hand he had taken; "I did not mean or wish you to think so, but I was too ill to speak almost to know what I did. It was not my fault."

"You do not make it mine, that I chose such a time, selfishly, I grant, to draw from your lips the words that are more to me than life?"

"Cannot you be generous ?" for once, she was very near saying.

"Where you are concerned, I do not know how."

Fleda was silent a moment, and then bowed her face in her hands.

"May I not ask that question of you?" said he, bending down and endeavouring to remove them; "will you not say or look that word that will make others happy beside me?"

"I cannot, Sir."

"Not for their sakes?" he said, calmly.

"Can you ask me to do for theirs, what I would not for my own?"

"Yes for mine," he said, with a meaning deliberateness.

Fleda was silent, with a face of white determination.

"It will be beyond eluding, as beyond recal, the second time. I may seem selfish I am selfish but, dear Miss Ringgan, you do not see all you, who make me so, can make me anything else with a touch of your hand it is selfishness that would be bound to your happiness, if you did but entrust it to me."

Fleda neither spoke nor looked at him, and rose up from her chair.

"Is this your generosity?" he said, pointedly, though gently.

"That is not the question now, Sir," said Fleda, who was trembling painfully. "I cannot do evil that good may come."

"But evil?" said he, detaining her "what evil do I ask of you? to remove evil, I do."

Fleda clasped her hands, but answered calmly

"I cannot make any pretences, Sir; I cannot promise to give what is not in my power."

"In whose power, then?" said he, quickly.

A feeling of indignation came to Fleda's aid, and she turned away. But he stopped her still.

"Do you think I do not understand?" he said, with a covert sneer, that had the keenness, and hardness, and the brightness of steel.

"I do not, Sir," said Fleda.

"Do you think I do not know whom you came here to meet?"

Fleda's glance of reproach was a most innocent one, but it did not check him.

"Has that fellow renewed his old admiration of you?" he went on, in the same tone.

"Do not make me desire his old protection," said Fleda, her gentle face roused to a flush of displeasure.

"Protection!" said Charlton, coming in, "who wants protection? here it is protection from what? my old friend Lewis? what the deuce does this lady want of protection, Mr. Thorn?"

It was plain enough that Fleda wanted it, from the way she was drooping upon his arm.

"You may ask the lady herself," said Thorn, in the same tone he had before used; "I have not the honour to be her spokesman."

"She don't need one," said Charlton; "I addressed myself to you speak for yourself, man."

"I am not sure that it would be her pleasure I should," said Thorn. "Shall I tell this gentleman, Miss Ringgan, who needs protection, and from what?"

Fleda raised her head, and, putting her hand on his arm, looked a concentration of entreaty lips were sealed.

"Will you give me," said he, gently taking the hand in his own, "your sign-manual for Captain Rossitur's security? It is not too late. Ask it of her, Sir."

"What does this mean?" said Charlton, looking from his cousin to his friend.

"You shall have the pleasure of knowing, Sir, just so soon as
I find it convenient."

"I will have a few words with you on this subject, my fine fellow," said Captain Rossitur, as the other was preparing to leave the room.

"You had better speak to somebody else," said Thorn. "But I am ready."

Charlton muttered an imprecation upon his absurdity, and turned his attention to Fleda, who needed it, and yet desired anything else. For a moment she had an excuse for not answering his questions in her inability; and then, opportunely, Mrs. Decatur came in to look after her; and she was followed by her daughter. Fleda roused all her powers to conceal and command her feelings; rallied herself; said she had been a little weak and faint; drank water, and declared herself able to go back into the drawing-room. To go home would have been her utmost desire, but at the instant her energies were all bent to the one point of putting back thought, and keeping off suspicion. And in the first hurry and bewilderment of distress, the dread of finding herself alone with Charlton, till she had had time to collect her thoughts, would of itself have been enough to prevent her accepting the proposal.

She entered the drawing-room again on Mrs. Decatur's arm, and had stood a few minutes talking or listening, with that same concentration of all her faculties upon the effort to bear up outwardly, when Charlton came up to ask if he should leave her. Fleda made no objection, and he was out of her sight, far enough to be beyond reach or recal, when it suddenly struck her that she ought not to have let him go without speaking to him without entreating him to see her in the morning before he saw Thorn. The sickness of this new apprehension was too much for poor Fleda's power of keeping up. She quietly drew her arm from Mrs. Decatur's, saying that she would sit down; and sought out a place for herself, apart from the rest, by an engraving-stand, where for a little while, not to seem unoccupied, she turned over print after print, that she did not see. Even that effort failed at last; and she sat gazing at one of Sir Thomas Lawrence's bright-faced children, and feeling as if in herself the tides of life were setting back upon their fountain preparatory to being still for ever. She became sensible that some one was standing beside the engravings, and looked up at Mr. Carleton.

"Are. you ill?" he said, very gently and tenderly.

The answer was a quick motion of Fleda's hand to her head, speaking sudden pain, and perhaps sudden difficulty of self- command. She did not speak.

"Will you have anything?"

A whispered "No."

"Would you like to return to Mrs. Evelyn's? I have a carriage here."

With a look of relief that seemed to welcome him as her good angel, Fleda instantly rose up, and took the arm he offered her. She would have hastened from the room then, but he gently checked her pace; and Fleda was immediately grateful for the quiet and perfect shielding from observation that his manner secured her. He went with her up the stairs, and to the very door of the dressing-room. There Fleda hurried on her shoes and mufflers in trembling fear that some one might come and find her, gained Mr. Carleton's arm again, and was placed in the carriage.

The drive was in perfect silence, and Fleda's agony deepened and strengthened with every minute. She had freedom to think, and thought did but carry a torch into chamber after chamber of misery. There seemed nothing to be done. She could not get hold of Charlton; and if she could? Nothing could be less amenable than his passions to her gentle restraints. Mr. Thorn was still less approachable or manageable, except in one way that she did not even think of. His insinuations about Mr. Carleton did not leave even a tinge of embarrassment upon her mind; they were cast from her as insulting absurdities, which she could not think of a second time without shame.

The carriage rolled on with them a long time without a word being said. Mr. Carleton knew that she was not weeping nor faint. But as the light of the lamps was now and then cast within the carriage, he saw that her face looked ghastly; and he saw too, that its expression was not of a quiet sinking under sorrow, nor of an endeavour to bear up against it, but a wild searching gaze into the darkness of possibilities. They had near reached Mrs. Evelyn's.

"I cannot see you so," he said, gently touching the hand which lay listlessly beside him. "You are ill!"

Again the same motion of the other hand to her face, the quick token of great pain suddenly stirred.

"For the sake of old times, let me ask," said he "can nothing be done?"

Those very gentle and delicate tones of sympathy and kindness were too much to bear. The hand was snatched away to be pressed to her face. O that those old times were back again, and she a child that could ask his protection! no one to give it now.

He was silent a moment. Fleda's head bowed beneath the mental pressure.

"Has Dr. Gregory returned?"

The negative answer was followed by a half-uttered exclamation of longing checked midway, but sufficiently expressive of her want.

"Do you trust me?" he said, after another second of pausing.

"Perfectly!" said Fleda, amidst her tears, too much excited to know what she was saying, and in her simplicity half forgetting that she was not a child still; "more than any one in the world!"

The few words he had spoken, and the manner of them, had curiously borne her back years in a minute; she seemed to be under his care more than for the drive home. He did not speak again for a minute; when he did, his tone was very quiet, and lower than before.

"Give me what a friend can have in charge to do for you, and it shall be done."

Fleda raised her head, and looked out of the window, in a silence of doubt. The carriage stopped at Mrs. Evelyn's.

"Not now," said Mr. Carleton, as the servant was about to open the door "drive round the square till I speak to you."

Fleda was motionless and almost breathless with uncertainty. If Charlton could be hindered from meeting Mr. Thorn but how could Mr. Carleton effect it? But there was that in him or in his manner, which invariably created confidence in his ability, or fear of it, even in strangers; and how much more in her who had a childish but very clear recollection of several points in his character which confirmed the feeling. And might not something be done, through his means, to facilitate her uncle's escape? of whom she seemed to herself now the betrayer. But to tell him the story! a person of his high nice notions of character what a distance it would put even between his friendship and her but that thought was banished instantly, with one glance at Mr. Thorn's imputation of ungenerousness. To sacrifice herself to him would not have been generosity to lower herself in the esteem of a different character, she felt, called for it. There was time even then, too, for one swift thought of the needlessness and bitter fruits of wrong-doing. But here they were should she make them known, and trouble Mr. Carleton, friend though he were, with these miserable matters in which he had no concern? She sat with a beating heart and a very troubled brow, but a brow as easy to read as a child's. It was the trouble of anxious questioning. Mr. Carleton watched it for a little while undecided as ever, and more pained.

"You said you trusted me," he said quietly, taking her hand again.

"But I don't know what you could do, Mr. Carleton," Fleda said, with a trembling voice.

"Will you let me be the judge of that?"

"I cannot bear to trouble you with these miserable things "

"You cannot," said he, with that same quiet tone, "but by thinking and saying so. I can have no greater pleasure than to take pains for you."

Fleda heard these words precisely, and with the same simplicity as a child would have heard them, and answered with a very frank burst of tears soon, as soon as possible, according to her custom, driven back, though even in the act of quieting herself, they broke forth again as uncontrollably as at first. But Mr. Carleton had not long to wait. She raised her head again after a short struggle, with the wonted look of patience sitting upon her brow, and wiping away her tears, paused merely for breath and voice. He was perfectly silent.

"Mr. Carleton, I will tell you," she began; "I hardly know whether I ought or ought not" and her hand went to her forehead for a moment "but I cannot think to-night and I have not a friend to apply to"

She hesitated; and then went on, with a voice that trembled and quavered sadly.

"Mr. Thorn has a secret of my uncle's in his power which he promised without conditions to keep faithfully; and now insists that he will not but upon conditions"

"And cannot the conditions be met?"

"No and, oh, I may as well tell you at once!" said Fleda in bitter sorrow; "it is a crime that he committed"

"Mr. Thorn?"

"No O no!" said Fleda, weeping bitterly, "not he"

Her agitation was excessive for a moment; then she threw it off, and spoke more collectedly, though with exceeding depression of manner.

"It was long ago when he was in trouble he put Mr. Thorn's name to a note, and never was able to take it up; and nothing was ever heard about it till lately; and last week he was going to leave the country, and Mr. Thorn promised that the proceedings should be entirely given up; and that was why I came to town, to find uncle Rolf, and bring him home; and I did, and he is gone; and now Mr. Thorn says, it is all going on again, and that he will not escape this time; and I have done it!"

Fleda writhed again in distress.

"Thorn promised without conditions?"

"Certainly he promised freely and now he insists upon them; and you see uncle Rolf would have been safe out of the country now, if it hadn't been for me"

"I think I can undo this snarl," said Mr. Carleton, calmly.

"But that is not all," said Fleda, a little quieted; "Charlton came in this evening when we were talking, and he was surprised to find me so, and Mr. Thorn was in a very ill humour, and some words passed between them, and Charlton threatened to see him again; and oh, if he does!" said poor Fleda "that will finish our difficulties! for Charlton is very hot, and I know how it will end how it must end"

"Where is your cousin to be found?"

"I don't know where he lodges when he is in town."

"You did not leave him at Mrs. Decatur's. Do you know where he is this evening?"

"Yes!" said Fleda, wondering that she should have heard and remembered; "he said he was going to meet a party of his brother officers at Mme. Fouché's a sister-in-law of his Colonel, I believe."

"I know her. This note was it the name of the young Mr.
Thorn, or of his father that was used?"

"Of his father."

"Has he appeared at all in this business?"

"No," said Fleda, feeling for the first time that there was something notable about it.

"What sort of person do you take him to be?"

"Very kind very pleasant, always, he has been to me, and I should think to everybody very unlike the son."

Mr. Carleton had ordered the coachman back to Mrs. Evelyn's.

"Do you know the amount of the note? It may be desirable that
I should not appear uninformed."

"It was for four thousand dollars," Fleda said, in the low voice of shame.

"And when given?"

"I don't know exactly but six years ago some time in the winter of '43, it must have been."

He said no more till the carriage stopped; and then, before handing her out of it, lifted her hand to his lips. That carried all the promise Fleda wanted, from him. How oddly how curiously, her hand kept the feeling of that kiss upon it all night!

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Heat not a furnace for your friend so hot
That it may singe yourself."
SHAKESPEARE.

Mr. Carleton went to Madame Fouché's, who received most graciously, as any lady would, his apology for introducing himself unlooked-for, and begged that he would commit the same fault often. As soon as practicable, he made his way to Charlton, and invited him to breakfast with him the next morning.

Mrs. Carleton always said it never was known that Guy was refused anything he had a mind to ask. Charlton, though taken by surprise, and certainly not too much prepossessed in his favour, was won by an influence that, where its owner chose to exert it, was generally found irresistible; and not only accepted the invitation, but was conscious to himself of doing it with a good deal of pleasure. Even when Mr. Carleton made the further request that Captain Rossitur would, in the meantime, see no one on business of any kind, intimating that the reason would then be given, Charlton, though startling a little at this restraint upon his freedom of motion, could do no other than give the desired promise, and with the utmost readiness. Guy then went to Mr. Thorn's. It was, by this time, not early.

"Mr. Lewis Thorn is he at home?"

"He is, Sir," said the servant, admitting him rather hesitatingly.

"I wish to see him a few moments on business."

"It is no hour for business," said the voice of Mr. Lewis from over the balusters "I can't see anybody to-night."

"I ask but a few minutes," said Mr. Carleton. "It is important."

"It may be anything!" said Thorn. "I wont do business after twelve o'clock."

Mr. Carleton desired the servant to carry his card, with the same request, to Mr. Thorn the elder.

"What's that?" said Thorn, as the man came up stairs "my father? Pshaw! he can't attend to it. Well, walk up, Sir, if you please! may as well have it over and done with it."

Mr. Carleton mounted the stairs and followed the young gentleman into an apartment, to which he rapidly led the way.

"You've no objection to this, I suppose?" Thorn remarked, as he locked the door behind them.

"Certainly not," said Mr. Carleton, coolly, taking out the key and putting it in his pocket "my business is private it needs no witnesses."

"Especially as it so nearly concerns yourself," said Thorn, sneeringly.

"Which part of it, Sir?" said Mr. Carleton, with admirable breeding. It vexed, at the same time that it constrained Thorn.

"I'll let you know, presently!" he said, hurriedly proceeding to the lower end of the room, where some cabinets stood, and unlocking door after door in mad haste.

The place had somewhat the air of a study perhaps Thorn's private room. A long table stood in the middle of the floor, with materials for writing, and a good many books were about the room, in cases and on the tables, with maps, and engravings, and portfolio's, and a nameless collection of articles the miscellaneous gathering of a man of leisure and some literary taste.

Their owner presently came back from the cabinets with tokens of a very different kind about him.

"There, Sir!" he said, offering to his guest a brace of most inhospitable-looking pistols "take one, and take your stand, as soon as you please nothing like coming to the point at once!"

He was heated and excited even more than his manner indicated. Mr. Carleton glanced at him, and stood quietly examining the pistol he had taken. It was already loaded.

"This is a business that comes upon me by surprise," he said, calmly. "I don't know what I have to do with this, Mr. Thorn."

"Well, I do," said Thorn, "and that's enough. Take your place, Sir! You escaped me once, but " and he gave his words dreadful emphasis "you wont do it the second time!"

"You do not mean," said the other, "that your recollection of such an offence has lived out so many years?"

"No, Sir! No Sir!" said Thorn "it is not that. I despise it, as I do the offender. You have touched me more nearly."

"Let me know ill what," said Mr. Carleton, turning his pistol's mouth down upon the table, and leaning on it.

"You know already what do you ask me for?" said Thorn, who was foaming; "if you say you don't, you lie heartily. I'll tell you nothing but out of this."

"I have not knowingly injured you, Sir in a whit."

"Then a Carleton may be a liar," said Thorn, "and you are one I dare say not the first. Put yourself there, Sir, will you?"

"Well," said Guy, carelessly, "if it is decreed that I am to fight, of course there's no help for it; but as I have business on hand that might not be so well done afterwards, I must beg your attention to that in the first place."

"No, Sir," said Thorn, "I'll attend to nothing I'll hear nothing from you. I know you! I'll not hear a word. I'll see to the business! Take your stand."

"I will not have anything to do with pistols," said Mr. Carleton, coolly, laying his out of his hand; "they make too much noise."

"Who cares for the noise?" said Thorn. "It wont hurt you; and the door is locked."

"But people's ears are not," said Guy.

Neither tone, nor attitude, nor look, had changed in the least its calm gracefulness. It began to act upon Thorn.

"Well, in the devil's name, have your own way," said he, throwing down his pistol too, and going back to the cabinets at the lower end of the room "there are rapiers here, if you like them better I don't the shortest the best for me but here they are take your choice."

Guy examined them carefully for a few minutes, and then laid them both, with a firm hand upon them, on the table.

"I will choose neither, Mr. Thorn, till you have heard me. I came here to see you on the part of others I should be a recreant to my charge if I allowed you or myself to draw me into anything that might prevent my fulfilling it. That must be done first."

Thorn looked with a lowering brow on the indications of his opponent's eye and attitude; they left him plainly but one course to take.

"Well, speak and have done," he said, as in spite of himself; "but I know it already."

"I am here as a friend of Mr. Rossitur."

"Why don't you say a friend of somebody else, and come nearer the truth?" said Thorn.

There was an intensity of expression in his sneer, but pain was there as well as anger; and it was with even a feeling of pity that Mr. Carleton answered

"The truth will be best reached, Sir, if I am allowed to choose my own words."

There was no haughtiness in the steady gravity of this speech, whatever there was in the quiet silence he permitted to follow. Thorn did not break it.

"I am informed of the particulars concerning this prosecution of Mr. Rossitur I am come here to know if no terms can be obtained."

"No!" said Thorn "no terms I wont speak of terms. The matter will be followed up now till the fellow is lodged in jail, where he deserves to be."

"Are you aware, Sir, that this, if done, will be the cause of very great distress to a family who have not deserved it?"

"That can't be helped," said Thorn. "Of course, it must cause distress, but you can't act upon that. Of course, when a man turns rogue, he ruins his family that's part of his punishment and a just one."

"The law is just," said Mr. Carleton, "but a friend may be merciful."

"I don't pretend to be a friend," said Thorn, viciously, "and I have no cause to be merciful. I like to bring a man to public shame when he has forfeited his title to anything else; and I intend that Mr. Rossitur shall become intimately acquainted with the interior of the State's prison."

"Did it ever occur to you that public shame might fall upon other than Mr. Rossitur, and without the State prison?"

Thorn fixed a somewhat startled look upon the steady powerful eye of his opponent, and did not like its meaning.

"You must explain yourself, Sir," he said, haughtily.

"I am acquainted with all the particulars of this proceeding,
Mr. Thorn. If it goes abroad, so surely will they."

"She told you, did she?" said Thorn, in a sudden flash of fury.

Mr. Carleton was silent, with his air of imperturbable reserve, telling and expressing nothing but a cool independence that put the world at a distance.

"Ha!" said Thorn, "it is easy to see why our brave Englishman comes here to solicit 'terms' for his honest friend Rossitur he would not like the scandal of franking letters to Sing Sing. Come, Sir!" he said, snatching up the pistol, "our business is ended come, I say, or I wont wait for you."

But the pistol was struck from his hand.

"Not yet," said Mr. Carleton, calmly, "you shall have your turn at these mind, I promise you; but my business must be done first till then, let them alone."

"Well, what is it?" said Thorn, impatiently. "Rossitur will be a convict, I tell you; so you'll have to give up all thoughts of his niece, or pocket her shame along with her. What more have you got to say? that's all your business, I take it."

"You are mistaken, Mr. Thorn," said Mr. Carleton, gravely.

"Am I? In what ?"

"In every position of your last speech."

"It don't affect your plans and views, I suppose, personally, whether this prosecution is continued or not?"

"It does not in the least."

"It is indifferent to you, I suppose, what sort of a queen consort you carry to your little throne of a provinciality down yonder?"

"I will reply to you, Sir, when you come back to the subject," said Mr. Carleton, coldly.

"You mean to say that your pretensions have not been in the way of mine?"

"I have made none, Sir."

"Doesn't she like you?"

"I have never asked her."

"Then, what possessed her to tell you all this to-night?"

"Simply because I was an old friend, and the only one at hand,
I presume."

"And you do not look for any reward of your services, of course?"

"I wish for none, Sir, but her relief."

"Well, it don't signify," said Thorn, with a mixture of expressions in his face "if I believed you, which I don't it don't signify a hair what you do, when once this matter is known. I should never think of advancing my pretensions into a felon's family."

"You know that the lady in whose welfare you take so much interest will in that case suffer aggravated distress as having been the means of hindering Mr. Rossitur's escape."

"Can't help it," said Thorn, beating the table with a ruler; "so she has; she must suffer for it. It isn't my fault."

"You are willing, then, to abide the consequences of a full disclosure of all the circumstances? for part will not come out without the whole."

"There is happily nobody to tell them," said Thorn, with a sneer.

"Pardon me they will not only be told, but known thoroughly in all the circles in this country that know Mr. Thorn's name."

"The lady," said Thorn, in the same tone, "would hardly relish such a publication of her name her welfare would be scantily advantaged by it."

"I will take the risk of that upon myself," said Mr. Carleton, quietly; "and the charge of the other."

"You dare not !" said Thorn. "You shall not go alive out of this room to do it! Let me have it, Sir! You said you would."

His passion was at a fearful height, for the family pride which had been appealed to, felt a touch of fear, and his other thoughts were confirmed again, besides the dim vision of a possible thwarting of all his plans. Desire almost concentred itself upon revenge against the object that threatened them. He had thrown himself again towards the weapons which lay beyond his reach, but was met, and forcibly withheld from them.

"Stand back!" said Mr. Carleton. "I said I would, but I am not ready finish this business first."

"What is there to finish?" said Thorn, furiously "you will never live to do anything out of these doors again you are mocking yourself."

"My life is not in your hands, Sir, and I will settle this matter before I put it in peril. If not with you, with Mr. Thorn, your father, to whom it more properly belongs."

"You cannot leave the room to see him," said Thorn, sneeringly.

"That is at my pleasure," said the other, "unless hindered by means I do not think you will use."

Thorn was silent.

"Will you yield anything of justice, once more, in favour of this distressed family?"

"That is, yield the whole, and let the guilty go free?"

"When the punishment of the offender would involve that of so many unoffending, who, in this case, would feel it with peculiar severity."

"He deserves it, if it was only for the money he has kept me out of; he ought to be made to refund what he has stolen, if it took the skin off his back!"

"That part of his obligation," said Mr. Carleton, "I am authorised to discharge, on condition of having the note given up. I have a cheque with me which I am commissioned to fill up, from one of the best names here. I need only the date of the note, which the giver of the cheque did not know."

Thorn hesitated, again tapping the table with the ruler in a troubled manner. He knew, by the calm erect figure before him and the steady eye he did not care to meet, that the threat of disclosure would be kept. He was not prepared to brave it, in case his revenge should fail; and if it did not

"It is deuced folly," he said, at length, with a half laugh, "for I shall have it back again in five minutes, if my eye don't play me a trick; however, if you will have it so, I don't care. There are chances in all things."

He went again to the cabinets, and presently brought the endorsed note. Mr. Carleton gave it a cool and careful examination, to satisfy himself of its being the true one, and then delivered him the cheque the blank duly filled up.

"There are chances in nothing, Sir," he said, as he proceeded to burn the note effectually in the candle.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that there is a Supreme Disposer of all things, who, among the rest, has our lives in his hand. And now, Sir, I will give you that chance at my life for which you have been so eagerly wishing."

"Well, take your place," said Thorn, seizing his pistol, "and take your arms, put yourself at the end of the table, never mind the noise!"

"I shall stand here," said Mr. Carleton, quietly folding his arms; "you may take your place where you please."

"But you are not armed," said Thorn, impatiently: "why don't you get ready? what are you waiting for?"

"I have nothing to do with arms," said Mr. Carleton, smiling; "I have no wish to hurt you, Mr. Thorn; I bear you no ill- will. But you may do what you please with me."

"But you promised!" said Thorn, in desperation.

"I abide by my promise, Sir."

Thorn's pistol hand fell he looked dreadfully. There was a silence of several minutes.

"Well?" said Mr. Carleton, looking up and smiling.

"I can do nothing, unless you will," said Thorn, hoarsely, and looking hurriedly away.

"I am at your pleasure, Sir! But, on my own part, I have none to gratify."

There was silence again, during which Thorn's face was pitiable in its darkness. He did not stir.

"I did not come here in enmity, Mr. Thorn," said Guy, after a little, approaching him "I have none now. If you believe me, you will throw away the remains of yours, and take my hand in pledge of it."

Thorn was ashamed and confounded, in the midst of passions that made him at the moment a mere wreck of himself. He inwardly drew back exceedingly from the proposal. But the grace with which the words were said wrought upon all the gentlemanly character that belonged to him, and made it impossible not to comply. The pistol was exchanged for Mr. Carleton's hand.

"I need not assure you," said the latter, "that nothing of what we have talked of to-night shall ever be known or suspected, in any quarter, unless by your means."

Thorn's answer was merely a bow, and Mr. Carleton withdrew, his quondam antagonist lighting him ceremoniously to the door.

It was easy for Mr. Carleton the next morning to deal with his guest at the breakfast-table.

The appointments of the service were such as of themselves to put Charlton in a good humour, if he had not come already provided with that happy qualification; and the powers of manner and conversation which his entertainer brought into play, not only put them into the back-ground of Captain Rossitur's perceptions, but even made him merge certain other things in fascination, and lose all thought of what probably had called him there. Once before, he had known Mr. Carleton come out in a like manner, but this time he forgot to be surprised.

The meal was two-thirds over before the business that had drawn them together was alluded to.

"I made an odd request of you last night, Captain Rossitur," said his host; "you haven't asked for an explanation."

"I had forgotten all about it," said Rossitur, candidly. "I am inconséquent enough myself not to think everything odd that requires an explanation."

"Then I hope you will pardon me if mine seem to touch upon what is not my concern. You had some cause to be displeased with Mr. Thorn's behaviour last night?"

Who told you as much? was in Rossitur's open eyes, and upon his tongue; but few ever asked naughty questions of Mr. Carleton. Charlton's eyes came back, not indeed to their former dimensions, but to his plate, in silence.

"He was incomprehensible," he said, after a minute: "and didn't act like himself; I don't know what was the matter. I shall call him to account for it."

"Captain Rossitur, I am going to ask you a favour."

"I will grant it with the greatest pleasure," said Charlton "if it lie within my power."

"A wise man's addition," said Mr. Carleton; "but I trust you will not think me extravagant. I will hold myself much obliged to you, if you will let Mr. Thorn's folly, or impertinence, go this time without notice."

Charlton absolutely laid down his knife in astonishment; while at the same moment this slight let to the assertion of his dignity roused it to uncommon pugnaciousness.

"Sir Mr. Carleton" he stammered "I would be very happy to grant anything in my power but this, Sir really goes beyond it."

"Permit me to say," said Mr. Carleton, "that I have myself seen Thorn upon the business that occasioned his discomposure, and that it has been satisfactorily arranged; so that nothing more is to be gained or desired from a second interview."

Who gave you authority to do any such thing? was again in Charlton's eyes, and an odd twinge crossed his mind; but, as before, his thoughts were silent.

"My part of the business cannot have been arranged," he said, "for it lies in a question or two that I must put to the gentleman myself."

"What will that question or two probably end in?" said Mr.
Carleton, significantly.

"I can't tell!" said Rossitur; "depends on himself, it will end according to his answers."

"Is his offence so great that it cannot be forgiven upon my entreaty?"

"Mr. Carleton!" said Rossitur "I would gladly pleasure you,
Sir; but, you see, this is a thing a man owes to himself."

"What thing, Sir?"

"Why, not to suffer impertinence to be offered him with impunity."

"Even though the punishment extend to hearts at home that must feel it far more heavily than the offender?"

"Would you suffer yourself to be insulted, Mr. Carleton?" said
Rossitur, by way of a mouth-stopper.

"Not if I could help it," said Mr. Carleton, smiling; "but, if such a misfortune happened, I don't know how it would be repaired by being made a matter of life and death."

"But honour might," said Rossitur.

"Honour is not reached, Captain Rossitur. Honour dwells in a strong citadel, and a squib against the walls does in no wise affect their security."

"But, also, it is not consistent with honour to sit still and suffer it."

"Question. The firing of a cracker, I think, hardly warrants a sally."

"It calls for chastisement, though," said Rossitur, a little shortly.

"I don't know that," said Mr. Carleton, gravely. "We have it on the highest authority that it is the glory of man to pass by a transgression."

"But you can't go by that," said Charlton, a little fidgeted; "the world wouldn't get along so; men must take care of themselves."

"Certainly. But what part of themselves is cared for in this resenting of injuries?"

"Why, their good name!"

"As how affected? pardon me."

"By the world's opinion," said Rossitur; "which stamps every man with something worse than infamy who cannot protect his own standing."

"That is to say," said Mr. Carleton, seriously, "that Captain Rossitur will punish a fool's words with death, or visit the last extremity of distress upon those who are dearest to him, rather than leave the world in any doubt of his prowess."

"Mr. Carleton!" said Rossitur, colouring "what do you mean by speaking so, Sir?"

"Not to displease you, Captain Rossitur."

"Then you count the world's opinion for nothing?"

"For less than nothing compared with the regards I have named."

"You would brave it without scruple?"

"I do not call him a brave man who would not, Sir."

"I remember," said Charlton, half laughing "you did it yourself once; and I must confess I believe nobody thought you lost anything by it."

"But forgive me for asking," said Mr. Carleton "is this terrible world a party to this matter? In the request which I made and which I have not given up, Sir do I presume upon any more than the sacrifice of a little private feeling?"

"Why, yes," said Charlton, looking somewhat puzzled, "for I promised the fellow I would see to it, and I must keep my word."

"And you know how that will of necessity issue."

"I can't consider that, Sir; that is a secondary matter. I must do what I told him I would."

"At all hazards?" said Mr. Carleton.

"What hazards?"

"Not hazard, but certainty of incurring a reckoning far less easy to deal with."

"What, do you mean with yourself?" said Rossitur.

"No, Sir, said Mr. Carleton, a shade of even sorrowful expression crossing his face; "I mean with one whose displeasure is a more weighty matter; one who has declared very distinctly, 'Thou shalt not kill.' "

"I am sorry for it," said Rossitur, after a disturbed pause of some minutes "I wish you had asked me anything else; but we can't take this thing in the light you do, Sir. I wish Thorn had been in any spot of the world but at Mrs. Decatur's, last night, or that Fleda hadn't taken me there; but since he was, there is no help for it I must make him account for his behaviour, to her as well as to me. I really don't know how to help it, Sir."

"Let me beg you to reconsider that," Mr. Carleton said, with a smile which disarmed offence "for, if you will not help it, I must."

Charlton looked in doubt for a moment, and then asked how he would help it.

"In that case, I shall think it my duty to have you bound over to keep the peace."

He spoke gravely now, and with that quiet tone which always carries conviction. Charlton stared unmistakably, and in silence.

"You are not in earnest?" he then said.

"I trust you will permit me to leave you for ever in doubt on that point," said Mr. Carleton, with again a slight giving way of the muscles of his face.

"I cannot, indeed," said Rossitur. "Do you mean what you said just now?"

"Entirely."

"But, Mr. Carleton," said Rossitur, flushing, and not knowing exactly how to take him up "is this the manner of one gentleman towards another?"

He had not chosen right, for he received no answer but an absolute quietness which needed no interpretation. Charlton was vexed and confused, but, somehow, it did not come into his head to pick a quarrel with his host, in spite of his irritation. That was, perhaps, because he felt it to be impossible.

"I beg your pardon," he said, most unconsciously verifying Fleda's words in his own person "but, Mr. Carleton, do me the favour to say that I have misunderstood your words. They are incomprehensible to me, Sir."

"I must abide by them nevertheless, Captain Rossitur," Mr. Carleton answered, with a smile. "I will not permit this thing to be done, while, as I believe, I have the power to prevent it. You see," he said, smiling again, "I put in practice my own theory."

Charlton looked exceedingly disturbed, and maintained a vexed and irresolute silence for several minutes, realizing the extreme disagreeableness of having more than his match to deal with.

"Come, Captain Rossitur," said the other, turning suddenly round upon him "say that you forgive me what you know was meant in no disrespect to you."

"I certainly should not," said Rossitur, yielding, however, with a half laugh, "if it were not for the truth of the proverb, that it takes two to make a quarrel."

"Give me your hand upon that. And now that the question of honour is taken out of your hands, grant, not to me, but to those for whom I ask it, your promise to forgive this man."

Charlton hesitated, but it was difficult to resist the request, backed as it was with weight of character and grace of manner, along with its intrinsic reasonableness; and he saw no other way so expedient of getting out of his dilemma.

"I ought to be angry with somebody," he said, half laughing, and a little ashamed; "if you will point out any substitute for Thorn, I will let him go, since I cannot help myself, with pleasure."

"I will bear it," said Mr. Carleton, lightly. "Give me your promise for Thorn, and hold me your debtor in what amount you please."

"Very well I forgive him," said Rossitur; "and now, Mr.
Carleton I shall have a reckoning with you some day for this."

"I will meet it. When you are next in England, you shall come down to shire, and I will give you any satisfaction you please."

They parted in high good-humour; but Charlton looked grave as he went down the staircase; and, very oddly, all the way down to Whitehall his head was running upon the various excellencies and perfections of his cousin Fleda.

CHAPTER XIX.

"There is a fortune coming
Towards you, dainty, that will take thee thus,
And set thee aloft."
BEN JONSON.

That day was spent by Fleda in the never-failing headache which was sure to visit her after any extraordinary nervous agitation, or too great mental or bodily trial. It was severe this time, not only from the anxiety of the preceding night, but from the uncertainty that weighed upon her all day long. The person who could have removed the uncertainty came, indeed, to the house, but she was too ill to see anybody.

The extremity of pain wore itself off with the day, and at evening she was able to leave her room and come down stairs. But she was ill yet, and could do nothing but sit in the corner of the sofa, with her hair unbound, and Florence gently bathing her head with cologne. Anxiety as well as pain had, in some measure, given place to exhaustion, and she looked a white embodiment of endurance, which gave a shock to her friends' sympathy. Visitors were denied, and Constance and Edith devoted their eyes and tongues at least to her service, if they could do no more.

It happened that Joe Manton was out of the way, holding an important conference with a brother usher next door, a conference that he had no notion would be so important when he began it, when a ring on his own premises summoned one of the maid-servants to the door. She knew nothing about "not at home," and unceremoniously desired the gentleman to "walk up," "the ladies were in the drawing-room."

The door had been set wide open for the heat, and Fleda was close in the corner behind it, gratefully permitting Florence's efforts with the cologne, which yet she knew could avail nothing but the kind feelings of the operator; for herself patiently waiting her enemy's time. Constance was sitting on the floor looking at her.

"I can't conceive how you can bear so much," she said, at length.

Fleda thought how little she knew what was borne!

"Why, you could bear it, I suppose, if you had to," said
Edith, philosophically.

"She knows she looks most beautiful," said Florence, softly passing her cologned hands down over the smooth hair "she knows

' Il faut souffrir pour être belle.' "

"La migraine ne se guérit avec les douceurs," said Mr.
Carleton, entering "try something sharp, Miss Evelyn."

"Where are we to get it?" said Constance, springing up, and adding, in a most lack-a-daisical aside to her mother "Mamma! the fowling-piece! Our last vinegar hardly comes under the appellation; and you don't expect to find anything volatile in this house, Mr. Carleton?"

He smiled.

"Have you none for grave occasions, Miss Constance?"

"I wont retort the question about 'something sharp,' " said Constance, arching her eyebrows, "because it is against my principles to make people uncomfortable; but you have certainly brought in some medicine with you, for Miss Ringgan's cheeks, a little while ago, were as pure as her mind from a tinge of any sort and now, you see "

"My dear Constance," said her mother, "Miss Ringgan's cheeks will stand a much better chance if you come away and leave her in peace. How can she get well with such a chatter in her ears?"

"Mr. Carleton and I, Mamma, are conferring upon measures of relief, and Miss Ringgan gives token of improvement already."

"For which I am very little to be thanked," said Mr. Carleton. "But I am not a bringer of bad news, that she should look pale at the sight of me."

"Are you a bringer of any news?" said Constance, "Oh, do let us have them, Mr. Carleton! I am dying for news I haven't heard a bit to-day."

"What is the news, Mr. Carleton?" said her mother's voice, from the more distant region of the fire.

"I believe there are no general news, Mrs. Evelyn."

"Are there any particular news?" said Constance. "I like particular news infinitely the best."

"I am sorry, Miss Constance, I have none for you. But, will this headache yield to nothing?"

"Fleda prophesied that it would to time," said Florence; "she would not let us try much beside."

"And I must confess there has been no volatile agency employed at all," said Constance; "I never knew time have less of it, and Fleda seemed to prefer him for her physician."

"He hasn't been a good one to-day," said Edith, nestling affectionately to her side. "Isn't it better, Fleda?" for she had covered her eyes with her hand.

"Not just now," said Fleda, softly.

"It is fair to change physicians if the first fails," said Mr. Carleton. "I have had a slight experience in headache-curing; if you will permit me, Miss Constance, I will supersede time and try a different prescription."

He went out to seek it, and Fleda leaned her head in her hand, and tried to quiet the throbbing heart, every pulsation of which was felt so keenly at the seat of pain. She knew, from Mr. Carleton's voice and manner she thought she knew that he had exceeding good tidings for her; once assured of that, she would soon be better; but she was worse now.

"Where is Mr. Carleton gone?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"I haven't the least idea, Mamma he has ventured upon an extraordinary undertaking, and has gone off to qualify himself, I suppose. I can't conceive why he didn't ask Miss Ringgan's permission to change her physician instead of mine."

"I suppose he knew there was no doubt about that," said Edith, hitting the precise answer of Fleda's thoughts.

"And what should make him think there was any doubt about mine?" said Constance, tartly.

"Oh, you know," said her sister, "you are so odd, nobody can tell what you will take a fancy to."

"You are extremely liberal in your expressions, at least, Miss Evelyn, I must say," said Constance, with a glance of no doubtful meaning. "Joe did you let Mr. Carleton in?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Well, let him in next time, and don't let in anybody else."

Whereafter the party relapsed into silent expectation.

It was not many minutes before Mr. Carleton returned.

"Tell your friend, Miss Constance," he said, putting an exquisite little vinaigrette into her hand, "that I have nothing worse for her than that."

"Worse than this!" said Constance, examining it. "Mr. Carleton, I doubt exceedingly whether smelling this will afford Miss Ringgan any benefit."

"Why, Miss Constance?"

"Because it has made me sick only to look at it!"

"There will be no danger for her," he said, smiling.

"Wont there? Well, Fleda, my dear, here, take it," said the young lady; "I hope you are differently constituted from me, for I feel a sudden pain since I saw it; but as you keep your eyes shut, and so escape the sight of this lovely gold chasing, perhaps it will do you no mischief."

"It will do her all the more good for that," said Mrs. Evelyn.

The only ears that took the benefit of this speech were Edith's and Mr. Carleton's; Fleda's were deafened by the rush of feeling. She very little knew what she was holding. Mr. Carleton stood with rather significant gravity, watching the effect of his prescription, while Edith beset her mother to know why the outside of the vinaigrette, being of gold, should make it do Fleda any more good; the disposing of which question effectually occupied Mrs. Evelyn's attention for some time.

"And, pray, how long is it since you took up the trade of a physician, Mr. Carleton?" said Constance.

"It is just about nine years, Miss Constance," he answered, gravely.

But that little reminder, slight as it was, overcame the small remnant of Fleda's self-command the vinaigrette fell from her hands, and her face was hid in them; whatever became of pain, tears must flow.

"Forgive me," said Mr. Carleton, gently, bending down towards her, "for speaking when I should have been silent Miss Evelyn, and Miss Constance, will you permit me to order that my patient be left in quiet."

And he took them away to Mrs. Evelyn's quarter, and kept them all three engaged in conversation, too busily to trouble Fleda with any attention, till she had had ample time to try the effect of the quiet and of the vinegar both. Then he went himself to look after her.

"Are you better?" said he, bending down, and speaking low.

Fleda opened her eyes and gave him, what a look! of grateful feeling. She did not know the half that was in it; but he did. That she was better, was a very small item.

"Ready for the coffee?" said he, smiling.

"Oh, no," whispered Fleda "It don't matter about that never mind the coffee!"

But he went back with his usual calmness to Mrs. Evelyn, and begged that she would have the goodness to order a cup of rather strong coffee to be made.

"But, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said that lady, "I am not at all sure that it would be the best thing for Miss Ringgan if she is better I think it would do her far more good to go to rest, and let sleep finish her cure, before taking something that will make sleep impossible."

"Did you ever hear of a physician, Mrs. Evelyn," he said, smiling, "'that allowed his prescriptions to be interfered with? I must beg you will do me this favour."

"I doubt very much whether it will be a favour to Miss
Ringgan," said Mrs. Evelyn "however "

And she rang the bell, and gave the desired order, with a somewhat disconcerted face. But Mr. Carleton again left Fleda to herself, and devoted his attention to the other ladies, with so much success, though with his usual absence of effort that good humour was served long before the coffee.

Then, indeed, he played the physician's part again made the coffee himself, and saw it taken, according to his own pleasure skilfully, however, seeming all the while, except to Fleda, to be occupied with everything else. The group gathered round her anew; she was well enough to bear their talk by this time by the time the coffee was drunk, quite well.

"Is it quite gone?" asked Edith.

"The headache? yes."

"You will owe your physician a great many thanks, my dear
Fleda," said Mrs. Evelyn.

Fleda's only answer to this, however, was by a very slight smile; and she presently left the room, to go up stairs and arrange her yet disarranged hair.

"That is a very fine girl," remarked Mrs. Evelyn, preparing half a cup of coffee for herself in a kind of amused abstraction. "My friend Mr. Thorn will have an excellent wife of her."

"Provided she marries him," said Constance, somewhat shortly.

"I am sure I hope she wont," said Edith; "and I don't believe she will."

"What do you think of his chances of success, Mr. Carleton?"

"Your manner of speech would seem to imply that they are very good, Mrs. Evelyn," he answered, coolly.

"Well, don't you think so?" said Mrs. Evelyn, coming back to her seat with her coffee-cup, and apparently dividing her attention between it and her subject. "It's a great chance for her most girls in her circumstances would not refuse it I think he's pretty sure of his ground."

"So I think," said Florence.

"It don't prove anything, if he is," said Constance, drily. "I hate people who are always sure of their ground."

"What do you think, Mr. Carleton?" said Mrs. Evelyn, taking little satisfied sips of her coffee.

"May I ask, first, what is meant by the 'chance,' and what by the 'circumstances.' "

"Why, Mr. Thorn has a fine fortune, you know, and he is of an excellent family there is not a better family in the city and very few young men of such pretensions would think of a girl that has no name nor standing."

"Unless she had qualities that would command them," said Mr.
Carleton.

"But, Mr. Carleton, Sir," said the lady, "Do you think that can be? do you think a woman can fill, gracefully, a high place in society, if she has had disadvantages in early life to contend with, that were calculated to unfit her for it?"

"But, mamma," said Constance, "Fleda don't show any such thing."

"No, she don't show it," said Mrs. Evelyn, "but I am not talking of Fleda I am talking of the effect of early disadvantages. What do you think, Mr. Carleton?"

"Disadvantages of what kind, Mrs. Evelyn?"

"Why, for instance the strange habits of intercourse, on familiar terms, with rough and uncultivated people such intercourse, for years in all sorts of ways in the field and in the house mingling with them as one of them it seems to me, it must leave its traces on the mind, and on the habits of acting and thinking."

"There is no doubt it does," he answered, with an extremely unconcerned face.

"And then, there's the actual want of cultivation," said Mrs. Evelyn, warming "time taken up with other things, you know usefully and properly, but still taken up so as to make much intellectual acquirement and accomplishments impossible; it can't be otherwise, you know neither opportunity nor instructors; and I don't think anything can supply the want in after life. It isn't the mere things themselves which may be acquired the mind should grow up in the atmosphere of them don't you think so, Mr. Carleton?"

He bowed.

"Music, for instance, and languages, and converse with society, and a great many things, are put completely beyond reach Edith, my dear, you are not to touch the coffee nor Constance either no, I will not let you And there could not be even much reading, for want of books, if for nothing else. Perhaps I am wrong, but I confess I don't see how it is possible in such a case"

She checked herself suddenly, for Fleda, with the slow, noiseless step that weakness imposed, had come in again, and stood by the centre-table.

"We are discussing a knotty question, Miss Ringgan," said Mr. Carleton, with a smile, as he brought a bergère for her; "I should like to have your voice on it."

There was no seconding of his motion. He waited till she had seated herself, and then went on.

"What, in your opinion, is the best preparation for wearing prosperity well?"

A glance at Mrs. Evelyn's face, which was opposite her, and at one or two others, which had, undeniably, the air of being arrested, was enough for Fleda's quick apprehension. She knew they had been talking of her. Her eye stopped short of Mr. Carleton's, and she coloured, and hesitated. No one spoke.

"By prosperity, you mean "

"Rank and fortune," said Florence, without looking up.

"Marrying a rich man, for instance," said Edith, "and having one's hands full."

This peculiar statement of the case occasioned a laugh all round, but the silence which followed seemed still to wait upon Fleda's reply.

"Am I expected to give a serious answer to that question?" she said, a little doubtfully.

"Expectations are not stringent things," said her first questioner, smiling. "That waits upon your choice."

"They are horridly stringent, I think," said Constance.

"We shall all be disappointed, if you don't, Fleda, my dear."

"By wearing it 'well,' you mean making a good use of it?"

"And gracefully," said Mrs. Evelyn.

"I think I should say, then," said Fleda, after some little. Hesitation, and speaking with evident difficulty "such an a experience as might teach one both the worth and the worthlessness of money."

Mr. Carleton's smile was a sufficiently satisfied one; but
Mrs. Evelyn retorted

"The worth and the worthlessness! Fleda, my dear, I don't understand "

"And what experience teaches one the worth, and what the worthlessness of money?" said Constance; "mamma is morbidly persuaded that I do not understand the first of the second I have an indefinite idea, from never being able to do more than half that I want with it."

Fleda smiled and hesitated again, in a way that showed she would willingly be excused, but the silence left her no choice but to speak.

"I think,'' she said, modestly, "that a person can hardly understand the true worth of money the ends it can best subserve that has not been taught it by his own experience of the want; and"

"What follows?" said Mr. Carleton.

"I was going to say, Sir, that there is danger, especially when people have not been accustomed to it, that they will greatly overvalue and misplace the real worth of prosperity; unless the mind has been steadied by another kind of experience, and has learnt to measure things by a higher scale."

"And how when they have been accustomed to it?" said Florence.

"The same danger, without the 'especially,' " said Fleda, with a look that disclaimed any assuming.

"One thing is certain," said Constance, "you hardly ever see les nouveaux riches make a graceful use of anything. Fleda, my dear, I am seconding all of your last speech that I understand. Mamma, I perceive, is at work upon the rest."

"I think we ought all to be at work upon it," said Mrs. Evelyn, "for Miss Ringgan has made it out that there is hardly anybody here that is qualified to wear prosperity well."

"I was just thinking so," said Florence.

Fleda said nothing, and perhaps her colour rose a little.

"I will take lessons of her," said Constance, with eyebrows just raised enough to neutralize the composed gravity of the other features, "as soon as I have an amount of prosperity that will make it worth while."

"But I don't think," said Florence, "that a graceful use of things is consistent with such a careful valuation and considering of the exact worth of everything it's not my idea of grace."

"Yet propriety is an essential element of gracefulness, Miss
Evelyn."

"Well," said Florence, "certainly; but what then?"

"Is it attainable, in the use of means, without a nice knowledge of their true value?"

"But, Mr. Carleton, I am sure I have seen improper things things improper in a way gracefully done?"

"No doubt; but, Miss Evelyn," said he, smiling, "the impropriety did not in those cases, I presume, attach itself to the other quality. The graceful manner was strictly proper to its ends, was it not, however the ends might be false?"

"I don't know," said Florence, "you have gone too deep for me. But do you think that close calculation, and all that sort of thing, is likely to make people use money, or anything else, gracefully? I never thought it did."

"Not close calculation alone," said Mr. Carleton.

"But do you think it is consistent with gracefulness?"

"The largest and grandest views of material things that man has ever taken, Miss Evelyn, stand upon a basis of the closest calculation."

Florence worked at her worsted, and looked very dissatisfied.

"Oh, Mr. Carleton," said Constance, as he was going, "don't leave your vinaigrette there it is on the table."

He made no motion to take it up.

"Don't you know, Miss Constance, that physicians seldom like to have anything to do with their own prescriptions."

"It's very suspicious of them," said Constance; "but you must take it Mr. Carleton, if you please, for I shouldn't like the responsibility of its being left here; and I am afraid it would be dangerous to our peace of mind, besides."

"I shall risk that," he said, laughing. "Its work is not done."

"And then, Mr. Carleton," said Mrs. Evelyn, and Fleda knew with what a look, "you know physicians are accustomed to be paid when their prescriptions are taken."

But the answer to this was only a bow, so expressive in its air of haughty coldness, that any further efforts of Mrs. Evelyn's wit were chilled for some minutes after he had gone.

Fleda had not seen this. She had taken up the vinaigrette, and was thinking with acute pleasure that Mr. Carleton's manner last night and to-night had returned to all the familiar kindness of old times. Not as it had been during the rest of her stay in the city. She could be quite contented now to have him go back to England, with this pleasant remembrance left her. She sat turning over the vinaigrette, which to her fancy was covered with hieroglyphics that no one else could read; of her uncle's affair, of Charlton's danger, of her own distress, and the kindness which had wrought its relief, more penetrating and pleasant than even the fine aromatic scent which fairly typified it. Constance's voice broke in upon her musings.

"Isn't it awkward?" she said, as she saw Fleda handling and looking at the pretty toy "Isn't it awkward? I sha'n't have a bit of rest now for fear something will happen to that. I hate to have people do such things."

"Fleda, my dear," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I wouldn't handle it, my love; you may depend there is some charm in it some mischievous, hidden influence and if you have much to do with it, I am afraid you will find a gradual coldness stealing over you, and a strange forgetfulness of Queechy, and you will perhaps lose your desire ever to go back there any more."

The vinaigrette dropped from Fleda's fingers, but beyond a heightened colour and a little tremulous gravity about the lip, she gave no other sign of emotion.

"Mamma," said Florence, laughing, "you are too bad !"

"Mamma," said Constance, "I wonder how any tender sentiment for you can continue to exist in Fleda's breast! By the way, Fleda, my dear, do you know that we have heard of two escorts for you? but I only tell you because I know you'll not be fit to travel this age."

"I should not be able to travel to-morrow," said Fleda.

"They are not going to-morrow," said Mrs. Evelyn, quietly.

"Who are they ?"

"Excellent ones," said Mrs. Evelyn. "One of them is your old friend, Mr. Olmney."

"Mr. Olmney!" said Fleda. "What has brought him to New York?"

"Really," said Mrs. Evelyn, laughing, "I do not know. What should keep him away? I was very glad to see him, for my part. Maybe he has come to take you home."

"Who is the other?" said Fleda.

"That's another old friend of yours Mrs. Renney."

"Mrs. Renney? who is she?" said Fleda.

"Why, don't you know? Mrs. Renney she used to live with your aunt Lucy, in some capacity years ago, when she was in New York housekeeper, I think; don't you remember her?"

"Perfectly now," said Fleda. "Mrs. Renney!"

"She has been housekeeper for Mrs. Schenck these several years, and she is going somewhere out West to some relation, her brother, I believe, to take care of his family; and her road leads her your way."

"When do they go, Mrs. Evelyn?"

"Both the same day, and both the day after to-morrow. Mr. Olmney takes the morning train, he says, unless you would prefer some other. I told him you were very anxious to go; and Mrs. Renney goes in the afternoon. So there's a choice for you."

"Mamma," said Constance, "Fleda is not fit to go at all, either time."

"I don't think she is," said Mrs. Evelyn. "But she knows best what she likes to do."

Thoughts and resolutions come swiftly one after another into Fleda's mind, and were decided upon in as quick succession. First, that she must go the day after to-morrow at all events; second, that it should not be with Mr. Olmney; third, that to prevent that, she must not see him in the meantime and, therefore yes, no help for it must refuse to see any one that called the next day; there was to be a party in the evening, so then she would be safe. No doubt Mr. Carleton would come, to give her a more particular account of what he had done, and she wished unspeakably to hear it; but it was not possible that she should make an exception in his favour and admit him alone. That could not be. If friends would only be simple, and straightforward, and kind, one could afford to be straightforward too; but as it was, she must not do what she longed to do, and they would be sure to misunderstand. There was, indeed, the morning of the day following left her, if Mr. Olmney did not take it into his head to stay. And it might issue in her not seeing Mr. Carleton at all, to bid good-bye and thank him? He would not think her ungrateful, he knew better than that, but still Well! so much for kindness!

"What are you looking so grave about? said Constance.

"Considering ways and means," Fleda said, with a slight smile.

"Ways and means of what?"

"Going."

"You don't mean to go the day after to-morrow?"

"Yes."

"It's too absurd for anything! You sha'n't do it."

"I must, indeed."

"Mamma," said Constance, "if you permit such a thing, I shall hope that memory will be a fingerboard of remorse to you," pointing to Miss Ringgan's pale cheeks.

"I shall charge it entirely upon Miss Ringgan's own fingerboard," said Mrs. Evelyn, with her complacently amused face. "Fleda, my dear, shall I request Mr. Olmney to delay his journey for a day or two, my love, till you are stronger?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Evelyn! I shall go then; if I am not ready in the morning, I will take Mrs. Renney in the afternoon I would quite as lief go with her."

"Then I will make Mr. Olmney keep to his first purpose," said
Mrs. Evelyn.

Poor Fleda, though with a very sorrowful heart, kept her resolutions, and for very forlornness and weariness, slept away a great part of the next day. Neither would she appear in the evening, for fear of more people than one. It was impossible to tell whether Mrs. Evelyn's love of mischief would not bring Mr. Olmney there, and the Thorns, she knew, were invited. Mr. Lewis would probably absent himself, but Fleda could not endure even the chance of seeing his mother. She wanted to know, but dared not ask, whether Mr. Carleton had been to see her. What if to-morrow morning should pass without her seeing him? Fleda pondered this uncertainty a little, and then jumped out of bed, and wrote him the heartiest little note of thanks and remembrance that tears would let her write; sealed it, and carried it herself to the nearest branch of the despatch post the first thing next morning.

She took a long look that same morning at the little vinaigrette, which still lay on the centre-table, wishing very much to take it up stairs and pack it away among her things. It was meant for her, she knew, and she wanted it as a very pleasant relic from the kind hands that had given it; and besides, he might think it odd, if she should slight his intention. But how odd it would seem to him if he knew that the Evelyns had half appropriated it. And appropriate it anew, in another direction, she could not. She could not, without their knowledge, and they would put their own absurd construction on what was a simple matter of kindness; she could not brave it.

The morning a long one it was had passed away; Fleda had just finished packing her trunk, and was sitting with a faint- hearted feeling of body and mind, trying to rest before being called to her early dinner, when Florence came to tell her it was ready.

"Mr. Carleton was here a while ago," she said, "and he asked for you; but mamma said you were busy; she knew you had enough to tire you without coming down stairs to see him. He asked when you thought of going."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him, 'Oh, you were not gone yet!' it's such a plague to be bidding people good-bye I always want to get rid of it. Was I right?"

Fleda said nothing, but in her heart she wondered what possible concern it could be of her friends if Mr. Carleton wanted to see her before she went away. She felt it was unkind they did not know how unkind, for they did not understand that he was a very particular friend, and an old friend they could not tell what reason there was for her wishing to bid him good-bye. She thought she should have liked to do it, very much.

CHAPTER XX.

"Methought I was there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had But man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had." MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Mrs. Evelyn drove down to the boat with Fleda, and did not leave her till she was safely put in charge of Mrs. Renney. Fleda immediately retreated to the. innermost depths of the ladies' cabin, hoping to find some rest for the body at least, if not forgetfulness for the mind.

The latter was not to be. Mrs. Renney was exceeding glad to see her, and bent upon knowing what had become of her since those days when they used to know each other.

"You're just the same, Miss Fleda, that you used to be you're very little altered I can see that though you're looking a good-deal more thin and pale; you had very pretty roses in your cheeks in those times. Yes, I know, I understood Mrs. Evelyn to say you had not been well; but, allowing for that, I can see you are just yourself still I'm glad of it. Do you recollect, Miss Fleda, what a little thing you was then?"

"I recollect, very well," said Fleda.

"I'm sure of another thing you're just as good as you used to be," said the housekeeper, looking at her complacently. "Do you remember how you used to come into my room to see me make jelly? I see it as well as if it was yesterday; and you used to beg me to let you squeeze the lemons; and I never could refuse you, because you never did anything I didn't want you to. And do you mind how I used to tie you up in a big towel, for fear you would stain your dress with the acid, and I'd stand and watch to see you putting all your strength to squeeze 'em clean, and be afraid that Mrs. Rossitur would be angry with me for letting you spoil your hands; but you used to look up and smile at me so, I couldn't help myself, but let you do just whatever you had a mind? You don't look quite so light and bright as you did in those times; but, to be sure, you aint feeling well! See here just let me pull some of these things onto this settee, and you put yourself down there and rest pillows let's have another pillow there, how's that?"

Oh, if Fleda might have silenced her! She thought it was rather hard that she should have two talkative companions on this journey of all others. The housekeeper paused no longer than to arrange her couch and see her comfortably laid down.

"And then Mr. Hugh would come in to find you and carry you away he never could bear to be long from you. How is Mr. Hugh, Miss Fleda? he used to be always a very delicate-looking child. I remember you and him used to be always together he was a very sweet boy! I have often said I never saw such another pair of children. How does Mr. Hugh have his health, Miss Fleda?"

"Not very well, just now," said Fleda, gently, and shutting her eyes that they might reveal less.

There was need; for the housekeeper went on to ask particularly after every member of the family, and where they had been living, and as much as she conveniently could about how they had been living. She was very kind through it all, or she tried to be; but Fleda felt there was a difference since the time when her aunt kept house in State Street, and Mrs. Renney made jellies for her. When her neighbours' affairs were exhausted, Mrs. Renney fell back upon her own, and gave Fleda a very circumstantial account of the occurrences that were drawing her westward; how so many years ago her brother had married and removed thither; how lately his wife had died; what, in general, was the character of his wife, and what, in particular, the story of her decease; how many children were left without care, and the state of her brother's business, which demanded a great deal; and how, finally, she, Mrs. Renney, had received and accepted an invitation to go on to Belle Rivière, and be housekeeper de son chef. And as Fleda's pale worn face had for some time given her no sign of attention, the housekeeper then hoped she was asleep, an placed herself so as to screen her, and have herself a good view of everything that was going on in the cabin.

But poor Fleda was not asleep, much as she rejoiced in being thought so. Mind and body could get no repose, sadly as the condition of both called for it. Too worn to sleep, perhaps; too down-hearted to rest. She blamed herself for it, and told over to herself the causes, the recent causes, she had of joy and gratitude; but it would not do. Grateful she could be and was; but tears that were not the distillation of joy came with her gratitude; came from under the closed eyelid in spite of her; the pillow was wet with them. She excused herself, or tried to, with thinking that she was weak and not very well, and that her nerves had gone through so much for a few days past, it was no wonder if a reaction left her without her usual strength of mind. And she could not help thinking, there had been a want of kindness in the Evelyns to let her come away to-day to make such a journey, at such a season, under such guardianship. But it was not all that; she knew it was not. The journey was a small matter; only a little piece of disagreeableness that was well in keeping with her other meditations. She was going home, and home had lost all its fair-seeming; its honours were withered. It would be pleasant indeed to be there again to nurse Hugh; but nurse him for what? life or death? she did not like to think; and beyond that she could fix upon nothing at all that looked bright in the prospect; she almost thought herself wicked, but she could not. If she might hope that her uncle would take hold of his farm like a man, and redeem his character and his family's happiness on the old place that would have been something; but he had declared a different purpose, and Fleda knew him too well to hope that he would be better than his word. Then they must leave the old homestead, where at least the associations of happiness clung, and go to a strange land. It looked desolate to Fleda, wherever it might be. Leave Queechy! that she loved unspeakably beyond any other place in the world; where the very hills had been the friends of her childhood, and where she had seen the maples grow green and grow red, through as many coloured changes of her own fortunes; the woods where the shade of her grandfather walked with her, and where the presence even of her father could be brought back by memory; where the air was sweeter and the sunlight brighter; by far, than in any other place for both had some strange kindred with the sunny days of long ago. Poor Fleda turned her face from Mrs. Renney, and leaving doubtful prospects and withering comforts for a while, as it were, out of sight, she wept the fair outlines and the red maples of Queechy, as if they had been all she had to regret. They had never disappointed her. Their countenance had comforted her many a time, under many a sorrow. After all, it was only fancy choosing at which shrine the whole offering of sorrow should be made. She knew that many of the tears that fell were due to some other. It was in vain to tell herself they were selfish; mind and body were in no condition to struggle with anything.

It had fallen dark some time, and she had wept and sorrowed herself into a half-dozing state, when a few words spoken near aroused her.

"It is snowing," was said by several voices.

"Going very slow, aint we?" said Fleda's friend, in a suppressed voice.

"Yes, 'cause it's so dark, you see; the Captain durstn't let her run."

Some poor witticism followed from a third party about the "Butterfly's" having run herself off her legs the first time she ever ran at all; and then Mrs. Renney went on.

"Is the storm so bad, Hannah?"

"Pretty thick can't see far ahead I hope we'll make out to find our way in that's all I care for."

"How far are we?"

"Not half way yet I don't know depends on what headway we make, you know; there aint much wind yet, that's a good thing."

"There aint any danger, is there?"

This, of course, the chambermaid denied, and a whispered colloquy followed, which Fleda did not try to catch. A new feeling came upon her weary heart a feeling of fear. There was a sad twinge of a wish that she were out of the boat, and safe back again with the Evelyns; and a fresh sense of the unkindness of letting her come away that afternoon so attended. And then, with that sickness of heart, the forlorn feeling of being alone, of wanting some one at hand to depend upon, to look to. It is true, that, in case of real danger, none such could be a real protection; and yet lot so neither, for strength and decision can live and make live, where a moment's faltering will kill; and weakness must often falter of necessity. "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth" to his people; she thought of that, and yet she feared for his ways are often what we do not like. A few moments of sick- heartedness and trembling and then Fleda mentally folded her arms about a few other words of the Bible, and laid her head down in quiet again. "The Lord is my refuge and my fortress: my God: in him will I trust."

And then what comes after

"He shall cover thee with his feathers; and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler."

Fleda lay quiet till she was called to tea.

"Bless me, how pale you are?" said the housekeeper, as Fleda raised herself up at this summons; "do you feel very bad, Miss Fleda?"

Fleda said "No."

"Are you frighted?" said the housekeeper "there's no need of that Hannah says there's no need we'll be in by and by."

"No, Mrs. Renney," said Fleda, smiling. "I believe I am not very strong yet."

The housekeeper and Hannah both looked at her with strangely touched faces, and again begged her to try the refreshment of tea. But Fleda would not go down, so they served her up there, with great zeal and tenderness. And then she waited patiently and watched the people in the cabin, as they sat gossiping in groups, or stupefying in solitude; and thought how miserable a thing is existence where religion and refinement have not taught the mind to live in somewhat beyond and above its every-day concerns.

Late at night the boat arrived safe at Bridgeport. Mrs. Renney and Fleda had resolved to stay on board till morning, when the former promised to take her to the house of a sister she had living in the town; as the cars would not leave the place till near eleven o'clock. Rest was not to be hoped for meantime in the boat, on the miserable couch which was the best the cabin could furnish; but Fleda was so thankful to have finished the voyage in safety, that she took thankfully everything else, even lying awake. It was a wild night. The wind rose soon after they reached Bridgeport, and swept furiously over the boat, rattling the tiller chains, and making Fleda so nervously alive to possibilities that she got up two or three times to see if the boat were fast to her moorings. It was very dark, and only by a fortunately-placed lantern, she could see a bit of the dark wharf and one of the posts belonging to it, from which the lantern never budged; so, at last quieted, or tired-out, nature had her rights, and she slept.

It was not refreshing rest after all, and Fleda was very glad that Mrs. Renney's impatience for something comfortable made her willing to be astir as early as there was any chance of finding people up in the town. Few were abroad when they left the boat, they two. Not a foot had printed the deep layer of snow that covered the wharf. It had fallen thick during the night. Just then it was not snowing; the clouds seemed to have taken a recess, for they hung threatening yet; one uniform leaden canopy was over the whole horizon.

"The snow aint done yet," said Mrs. Renney.

"No, but the worst of our journey is over," said Fleda. "I am glad to be on the land."

"I hope we'll get something to eat here," said Mrs. Renney, as they stepped along over the wharf. "They ought to be ashamed to give people such a mess, when it's just as easy to have things decent. My! how it has snowed! I declare, if I'd ha' known, I'd ha' waited till somebody had tracked a path for us. But I guess it's just as well we didn't; you look as like a ghost as you can, Miss Fleda. You'll be better when you get some breakfast. You'd better catch on to my arm I'll waken up the seven sleepers but what I'll have something to put life into you directly."

Fleda thanked her, but declined the proffered accommodation, and followed her companion in the narrow beaten path a few travellers had made in the street, feeling enough like a ghost, if want of flesh and blood reality were enough. It seemed a dream that she was walking through the grey light, and the empty streets of the little town; everything looked and felt so wild and strange.

If it was a dream, she was soon waked out of it. In the house, where they were presently received and established in sufficient comfort, there was such a little specimen of masculine humanity as never showed his face in dream-land yet a little bit of reality, enough to bring any dreamer to his senses. He seemed to have been brought up on stove heat, for he was all glowing yet from a very warm bed he had just tumbled out of somewhere, and he looked at the pale thin stranger by his mother's fire-place, as if she were an anomaly in the comfortable world. If he could have contented himself with looking! but he planted himself firmly on the rug, just two feet from Fleda, and, with a laudable and most persistent desire to examine into the causes of what he could not understand, he commenced inquiring

"Are you cold? say! Are you cold? say!" in a tone most provokingly made up of wonder and dulness. In vain Fleda answered him, that she was not very cold, and would soon not be cold at all by that good fire the question came again, apparently in all its freshness, from the interrogator's mind

"Are you cold? say !"

And silence and words, looking grave and laughing, were alike thrown away. Fleda shut her eyes at length, and used the small remnant of her patience to keep herself quiet till she was called to breakfast. After breakfast she accepted the offer of her hostess to go up stairs and lie down till the cars were ready; and there got some real and much needed refreshment of sleep and rest.

It lasted longer than she had counted upon. For the cars were not ready at eleven o'clock the snow last night had occasioned some perplexing delays. It was not till near three o'clock, that the often-despatched messenger to the depôt brought back word that they might go as soon as they pleased. It pleased Mrs. Renney to be in a great hurry, for her baggage was in the cars, she said, and it would be dreadful if she and it went different ways; so Fleda and her companion hastened down to the station-house and chose their places some time before anybody else thought of coming. They had a long, very tiresome waiting to go through, and room for some uneasy speculations about being belated and a night-journey. But Fleda was stronger now, and bore it all with her usual patient submission At length, by degrees, the people dropped in and filled the cars, and they set off.

"How early do you suppose we shall reach Greenfield?" said
Fleda.

"Why, we ought to get there between nine and ten o'clock, I should think," said her companion. "I hope the snow will hold up till we get there."

Fleda thought it a hope very unlikely to be fulfilled. There were as yet no snow-flakes to be seen near by, but, at a little distance, the low clouds seemed already to enshroud every clump of trees, and put a mist about every hill. They surely would descend more palpably soon.

It was pleasant to be moving swiftly on again towards the end of their journey, if Fleda could have rid herself of some qualms about the possible storm and the certain darkness; they might not reach Greenfield by ten o'clock; and she disliked travelling in the night at any time. But she could do nothing, and she resigned herself anew to the comfort and trust she had built upon last night. She had the seat next the window, and with a very sober kind of pleasure watched the pretty landscape they were flitting by misty as her own prospects darkening as they? no, she would not allow that thought. " 'Surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God;' and I can trust Him." And she found a strange sweetness in that naked trust and clinging of faith, that faith never tried never knows. But the breath of daylight was already gone, though the universal spread of snow gave the eye a fair range yet, white, white, as far as the view could reach, with that light misty drapery round everything in the distance, and merging into the soft grey sky; and every now and then, as the wind served, a thick wreath of white vapour came by from the engine and hid all, eddying past the windows, and then skimming off away over the snowy ground from which it would not lift; a more palpable veil for a moment of the distant things and then broken, scattered, fragmentary, lovely in its frailty, and evanishing. It was a pretty afternoon, but a sober; and the bare, black, solitary trees near hand which the cars flew by, looked to Fleda constantly like finger-posts of the past; and back, at their bidding, her thoughts and her spirits went, back and forward, comparing, in her own mental view what had once been so gay and genial with its present bleak and chill condition. And from this, in sudden contrast, came a strangely fair and bright image of heaven its exchange of peace for all this turmoil of rest for all this weary bearing up of mind and body against the ills that beset both of its quiet home for this unstable strange world, where nothing is at a standstill of perfect and pure society for the unsatisfactory and wearying friendships that the most are here. The thought came to Fleda like one of those unearthly clear north-western skies from which a storm-cloud has rolled away, that seem almost to mock earth with their distance from its defilement and agitations. "Truly I know that it shall be well with them that fear God!" She could remember Hugh she could not think of the words without him and yet say them with the full bounding assurance. And in that weary and uneasy afternoon, her mind rested and delighted itself with two lines of George Herbert, that only a Christian can well understand

"Thy power and love, my love and trust,
Make one place everywhere."

But the night fell, and Fleda at last could see nothing but the dim rail-fences they were flying by, and the reflection from some stationary lantern on the engine, or one of the forward cars, that always threw a bright spot of light on the snow. Still she kept her eyes fastened out of the window; anything but the view inboard. They were going slowly now, and frequently stopping; for they were out of time, and some other trains were to be looked-out for. Nervous work; and whenever they stopped, the voices which at other times were happily drowned in the rolling of the car-wheels, rose and jarred in discords far less endurable. Fleda shut her ears to the words, but it was easy enough without words to understand the indications of coarse and disagreeable natures in whose neighbourhood she disliked to find herself of whose neighbourhood she exceedingly disliked to be reminded. The muttered oath, the more than muttered jest, the various laughs that tell so much of head or heart emptiness the shadowy but sure tokens of that in human nature which one would not realize, and which one strives to forget; Fleda shrank within herself, and would gladly have stopped her ears; did sometimes covertly. Oh, if home could be but reached, and she out of this atmosphere! how well she resolved that never another time, by any motive of delicacy, or otherwise, she would be tempted to trust herself in the like again without more than womanly protection. The hours rolled wearily on; they heard nothing of Greenfield yet.

They came at length to a more obstinate stop than usual. Fleda took her hands from her ears to ask what was the matter.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Renney. "I hope they won't keep us a great while waiting here."

The door swung open, and the red comforter and tarpaulin hat of one of the breakmen showed itself a moment. Presently after, "Can't get on," was repeated by several voices in the various tones of assertion, interrogation, and impatience. The women folks, having nobody to ask questions of, had nothing for it but to be quiet and use their ears.

"Can't get on!" said another man, coming in "there's nothing but snow out o' doors track's all foul."

A number of people instantly rushed out to see.

"Can't get on any further to-night?" asked a quiet old gentleman of the news-bringer.

"Not another inch, Sir; worse off than old Dobbs was in the mill-pond we've got half way, but we can't turn and go back."

"And what are we going to do?" said an unhappy wight, not quick in drawing conclusions.

"I s'pose we'll all be stiff by the morning," answered the other, gravely "unless the wood holds out, which aint likely."

How much there is in even a cheery tone of voice. Fleda was sorry when this man took his away with him. There was a most uncheering confusion of tongues for a few minutes among the people he had left, and then the car was near deserted; everybody went out to bring his own wits to bear upon the obstacles in the way of their progress. Mrs. Renney observed that she might as well warm her feet while she could, and went to the stove for the purpose.

Poor Fleda felt as if she had no heart left. She sat still in her place, and leaned her head upon the back of the deserted chair before her, in utter inability to keep it up. The night journey was bad enough, but this was more than she had counted upon. Danger, to be sure, there might be none in standing still there all night, unless, perhaps, the danger of death from the cold. She had heard of such things; but to sit there till morning among all those people, and obliged to hear their unloosed tongues, Fleda felt almost that she could not bear it a most forlorn feeling, with which came anew a keen reflection upon the Evelyns, for having permitted her to run even the hazard of such trouble. And in the morning, if well it came, who would take care of them in all the subsequent annoyance and difficulty of getting out of the snow?

It must have taken very little time for these thoughts to run through her head, for half a minute had not flown, when the vacant seat beside her was occupied, and a band softly touched one of hers which lay in her lap. Fleda started up in terror, to have the hand taken and her eye met by Mr. Carleton.

"Mr. Carleton! O Sir, how glad I am to see you!" was said by eye and cheek, as unmistakably as by word.

"Have you come from the clouds?"

"I might rather ask that question of you," said he, smiling. "You have been invisible ever since the night when I had the honour of playing the part of your physician."

"I could not help it, Sir I was sure you would believe it. I wanted exceedingly to see you, and to thank you as well as I could, but I was obliged to leave it."

She could hardly say so much. Her swimming eye gave him more thanks than he wanted. But she scolded herself vigorously, and after a few minutes, was able to look and speak again.

"I hoped you would not think me ungrateful, Sir, but in case you might, I wrote to let you know that you were mistaken."

"You wrote to me?" said he.

"Yes, Sir, yesterday morning at least it put in the post yesterday morning."

"It was more unnecessary than you are aware of," he said, with a smile, and turning one of his deep looks away from her.

"Are we fast here for all night, Mr. Carleton!" she said, presently.

"I am afraid so I believe so I have been out to examine, and the storm is very thick."

"You need not look so about it for me," said Fleda "I don't care for it all now."

And a long-drawn breath half told how much she had cared for it, and what a burden was gone.

"You look very little like breasting hardships," said Mr. Carleton, bending on her so exactly the look of affectionate care that she had often had from him when she was a child, that Fleda was very near overcome again.

"Oh, you know," she said, speaking by dint of great force upon herself "you know the will is everything, and mine is very good."

But he looked extremely unconvinced and unsatisfied.

"I am so comforted to see you sitting there, Sir," Fleda went on gratefully, "that I am sure I can bear patiently all the rest."

His eye turned away, and she did not know what to make of his gravity. But a moment after, he looked again, and spoke with his usual manner.

"That business you entrusted to me," he said, in a lower tone,
"I believe you will have no more trouble with it."

"So I thought! so I gathered, the other night," said Fleda, her heart and her face suddenly full of many things.

"The note was given up I saw it burned."

Fleda's two hands clasped each other mutely.

"And will he be silent?"

"I think he will choose to be so, for his own sake."

The only sake that would avail in that quarter, Fleda knew.
How had Mr. Carleton ever managed it?

"And Charlton?" she said, after a few minutes' cheerful musing.

"I had the pleasure of Captain Rossitur's company to breakfast the next morning, and I am happy to report that there is no danger of any trouble arising there."

"How shall I ever thank you, Sir!" said Fleda, with trembling lips.

His smile was so peculiar, she almost thought he was going to tell her. But just then, Mrs. Renney having accomplished the desirable temperature of her feet, came back to warm her ears, and placed herself on the next seat happily not the one behind, but the one before them, where her eyes were thrown away; and the lines of Mr. Carleton's mouth came back to their usual quiet expression.

"You were in particular haste to reach home?" he asked.

Fleda said no, not in the abstract; it made no difference whether to-day or to-morrow.

"You had heard no ill news of your cousin?"

"Not at all, but it is difficult to find an opportunity of making the journey, and I thought I ought to come yesterday."

He was silent again; and the baffled seekers after ways and means, who had gone out to try arguments upon the storm, began to come pouring back into the car. And bringing with them not only their loud and coarse voices, with every shade of disagreeableness, aggravated by ill-humour, but also an average amount of snow upon their hats and shoulders, the place was soon full of a reeking atmosphere of great-coats. Fleda was trying to put up her window, but Mr. Carleton gently stopped her, and began bargaining with a neighbouring fellow- traveller for the opening of his.

"Well, Sir, I'll open it if you wish it," said the man, civilly, "but they say we sha'n't have nothing to make fires with more than an hour or two longer; so maybe you'll think we can't afford to let any too much cold in."

The gentleman however, persisting in his wish, and the wish being moreover backed with those arguments to which every grade of human reason is accessible, the window was opened. At first the rush of fresh air was a great relief; but it was not very long before the raw snowy atmosphere, which made its way in, was felt to be more dangerous, if it was more endurable, than the close pent-up one it displaced. Mr. Carleton ordered the window closed again; and Fleda's glance of meek grateful patience was enough to pay any reasonable man for his share of the suffering. Her share of it was another matter. Perhaps Mr. Carleton thought so, for he immediately bent himself to reward her and to avert the evil, and for that purpose brought into play every talent of manner and conversation that could beguile the time, and make her forget what she was among. If success were his reward he had it. He withdrew her attention completely from all that was around her, and without tasking it; she could not have borne that. He did not seem to task himself; but without making any exertion, he held her eye and ear, and guarded both from communication with things disagreeable. He knew it. There was not a change in her eye's happy interest, till, in the course of the conversation, Fleda happened to mention Hugh, and he noticed the saddening of the eye immediately afterwards.

"Is he ill?" said Mr. Carleton.

"I don't know," said Fleda, faltering a little "he was not very but a few weeks ago."

Her eye explained the broken sentences which there, in the neighbourhood of other ears, she dared not finish.

"He will be better after he has seen you," said Mr. Carleton, gently.

"Yes."

A very sorrowful and uncertain "yes," with an "if" in the speaker's mind, which she did not bring out.

"Can you sing your old song yet?" said Mr. Carleton, softly

"Yet one thing secures us,
Whatever betide?"

But Fleda burst into tears.

"Forgive me," he whispered, earnestly, "for reminding you of that you did not need it, and I have only troubled you."

"No, Sir, you have not," said Fleda "it did not trouble me, and Hugh knows it better than I do. I cannot bear anything to- night I believe"

"So you have remembered that, Mr. Carleton?" she said, a minute after.

"Do you remember that?" said he, putting her old little Bible into her hand.

Fleda seized it, but she could hardly bear the throng of images that started up around it. The smooth worn cover brought so back the childish happy days when it had been her constant companion the shadows of the Queechy of old, and Cynthia and her grandfather, and the very atmosphere of those times when she had led a light-hearted strange wild life all alone with them, reading the Encyclopaedia, and hunting out the wood-springs. She opened the book and slowly turned over the leaves where her father's hand had drawn those lines of remark and affection round many a passage the very look of them she knew; but she could not see it now, for her eyes were dim, and tears were dropping fast into her lap she hoped Mr. Carleton did not see them, but she could not help it; she could only keep the book out of the way of being blotted. And there were other and later associations she had with it too how dear! how tender! how grateful!

Mr. Carleton was quite silent for a good while till the tears had ceased; then he bent towards her so as to be heard no further off.

"It has been for many years my best friend and companion," he said, in a low tone.

Fleda could make no answer, even by look.

"At first," he went on, softly, "I had a strong association of you with it; but the time came when I lost that entirely, and itself quite swallowed up the thought of the giver."

A quick glance and smile told how well Fleda understood, how heartily she was pleased with that. But she instantly looked away again.

"And now," said Mr. Carleton, after a pause "for some time past, I have got the association again; and I do not choose to have it so. I have come to the resolution to put the book back into your hands, and not receive it again, unless the giver go with the gift."

Fleda looked up, a startled look of wonder, into his face, but the dark eye left no doubt of the meaning of his words; and in unbounded confusion she turned her own and her attention, ostensibly, to the book in her hand, though sight and sense were almost equally out of her power. For a few minutes poor Fleda felt as if all sensation had retreated to her finger- ends. She turned the leaves over and over, as if willing to cheat herself or her companion into the belief that she had something to think of there, while associations and images of the past were gone with a vengeance, swallowed up in a tremendous reality of the present; and the book, which a minute ago was her father's Bible, was now, what was it? something of Mr. Carleton's, which she must give back to him. But still she held it and looked at it conscious of no one distinct idea but that, and a faint one besides, that he might like to be repossessed of his property in some reasonable time time like everything else was in a whirl? the only steady thing in creation seemed to be that perfectly still and moveless figure by her side till her trembling fingers admonished her they would not be able to hold anything much longer; and gently and slowly, without looking, her hand put the book back towards Mr. Carleton. That both were detained together she knew, but hardly felt; the thing was that she had given it!

There was no other answer; and there was no further need that Mr. Carleton should make any efforts for diverting her from the scene and the circumstances where they were. Probably he knew that, for he made none. He was perfectly silent for a long time, and Fleda was deaf to any other voice that could be raised, near or far. She could not even think.

Mrs. Renney was happily snoring, and most of the other people had descended into their coat collars, or, figuratively speaking, had lowered their blinds by tilting over their hats in some uncomfortable position that signified sleep; and comparative quiet had blessed the place for some time; as little noticed, indeed, by Fleda, as noise would have been. The sole thing that she clearly recognized in connexion with the exterior world, was that clasp in which one of her hands lay. She did not know that the car had grown quiet, and that only an occasional grunt of ill-humour or waking-up colloquy testified that it was the unwonted domicile of a number of human beings, who were harbouring there in a disturbed state of mind. But this state of things could not last. The time came that had been threatened, when their last supply of extrinsic warmth was at an end. Despite shut windows, the darkening of the stove was presently followed by a very sensible and fast-increasing change of temperature; and this addition to their causes of discomfort roused every one of the company from his temporary lethargy. The growl of dissatisfied voices awoke again, more gruff than before; the spirit of jesting had long languished, and now died outright, and in its stead came some low, and deep, and bitter-spoken curses. Poor Mrs. Renney shook off her somnolency and shook her shoulders, a little business shake, admonitory to herself to keep cool; and Fleda came to the consciousness that some very disagreeable chills were making their way over her.

"Are you warm enough?" said Mr. Carleton, suddenly, turning to her.

"Not quite," said Fleda, hesitating; "I feel the cold a little. Please don't, Mr. Carleton!" she added, earnestly, as she saw him preparing to throw off his cloak, the identical black fox which Constance had described, with so much vivacity; "pray do not. I am not very cold I can bear a little I am not so tender as you think me; I do not need it, and you would feel the want very much after wearing it. I won't put it on."

But he smilingly bade her "stand up," stooping down and taking one of her hands to enforce his words, and giving her, at the same time, the benefit of one of those looks of good-humoured wilfulness to which his mother always yielded, and to which Fleda yielded instantly, though with a colour considerably heightened at the slight touch of peremptoriness in his tone.

"You are not offended with me, Elfie?" he said, in another manner, when she had sat down again, and he was arranging the heavy folds of the cloak.

Offended! a glance answered.

"You shall have everything your own way," he whispered, gently, as he stooped down to bring the cloak under her feet, "except yourself."

What good care should be taken of that exception was said in the dark eye at which Fleda hardly ventured half a glance. She had much ado to command herself.

She was shielded again from all the sights and sounds within reach. She was in a maze. The comfort of the fur-cloak was curiously mixed with the feeling of something else, of which that was an emblem a surrounding of care and strength which would effectually be exerted for her protection somewhat that Fleda had not known for many a long day the making up of the old want. Fleda had it in her heart to cry like a baby. Such a dash of sunlight had fallen at her feet that she hardly dared look at it for fear of being dazzled; but she could not look anywhere that she did not see the reflection.

In the mean time the carful of people settled again into sullen quietude. The cold was not found propitious to quarrelling. Those who could subsided again into lethargy; those who could not, gathered in their outposts to make the best defence they might of the citadel. Most happily it was not an extreme night; cold enough to be very disagreeable, and even (without a fur-cloak) dangerous; but not enough to put even noses and ears in immediate jeopardy. Mr. Carleton had contrived to procure a comfortable wrapper for Mrs. Renney, from a Yankee, who, for the sake of being a "warm man" as to his pockets, was willing to be cold otherwise for a time. The rest of the great-coats and cloaks, which were so alert and erect a little while ago, were doubled up on every side in all sorts of despondent attitudes. A dull quiet brooded over the assembly, and Mr. Carleton walked up and down the vacant space. Once he caught an anxious glance from Fleda, and came immediately to her side.

"You need not be troubled about me," he said, with a most genial smile; "I am not suffering never was farther from it in my life."

Fleda could neither answer nor look.

"There are not many hours of the night to wear out," he said.
"Can't you follow your neighbour's example?"

She shook her head.

"This watching is too hard for you. You will have another headache to-morrow."

"No, perhaps not," she said, with a grateful look up.

"You do not feel the cold now, Elfie?"

"Not at all not in the least I am perfectly comfortable
I am doing very well."

He stood still, and the changing lights and shades on Fleda's cheek grew deeper.

"Do you know where we are, Mr. Carleton?"

"Somewhere between a town the name of which I have forgotten, and a place called Quarrenton, I think; and Quarrenton, they tell me, is but a few miles from Greenfield. Our difficulties will vanish, I hope, with the darkness."

He walked again, and Fleda mused, and wondered at herself in the black fox. She did not venture another look, though her eye took in nothing very distinctly but the outlines of that figure passing up and down through the car. He walked perseveringly; and weariness at last prevailed over everything else with Fleda; she lost herself, with her head leaning against the bit of wood between the windows.

The rousing of the great-coats, and the growing gray light, roused her before her uneasy sleep had lasted an hour. The lamps were out, the car was again spotted with two long rows of window-panes, through which the light as yet came but dimly. The morning had dawned at last, and seemed to have brought with it a fresh accession of cold, for everybody was on the stir. Fleda put up her window to get a breath of fresh air, and see how the day looked.

A change of weather had come with the dawn. It was not fine yet. The snowing had ceased, but the clouds hung overhead still, though not with the leaden uniformity of yesterday; they were higher, and broken into many a soft, gray fold, that promised to roll away from the sky by and by. The snow was deep on the ground; every visible thing lapped in a thick white covering; a still, very grave, very pretty winter landscape, but somewhat dreary in its aspect, to a trainful of people fixed in the midst of it, out of sight of human habitation. Fleda felt that; but only in the abstract to her it did not seem dreary; she enjoyed the wild, solitary beauty of the scene very much, with many a grateful thought of what might have been. As it was, she left difficulties entirely to others.

As soon as it was light, the various inmates of the strange dormitory gathered themselves up, and set out on foot for Quarrenton. By one of them Mr. Carleton sent an order for a sleigh, which in as short a time as possible arrived, and transported him and Fleda, and Mrs. Renney, and one other ill- bestead woman, safely to the little town of Quarrenton.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!" LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.

It had been a wild night, and the morning looked scared. Perhaps it was only the particular locality, for if ever a place showed bleak and winter-stricken, the little town of Quarrenton was in that condition that morning. The snow overlaid and enveloped everything, except where the wind had been at work; and the wind and the gray clouds seemed the only agencies abroad. Not a ray of sunlight to relieve the uniform sober tints, the universal gray and white, only varied where a black house-roof, partially cleared, or a blacker bare- branched tree, gave it a sharp interruption. There was not a solitary thing that bore an indication of comfortable life, unless the curls of smoke that went up from the chimneys; and Fleda was in no condition to study their physiognomy.

A little square hotel, perched alone on a rising ground, looked the especial bleak and unpromising spot of the place. It bore, however, the imposing title of the Pocahontas; and there the sleigh set them down.

They were ushered upstairs into a little parlour, furnished in the usual style, with one or two articles a great deal too showy for the place, and a general dearth as to the rest. A lumbering mahogany sofa, that showed as much wood and as little promise as possible, a marble-topped centre-table, chairs in the minority, and curtains minus, and the hearth-rug providently turned bottom upwards. On the centre-table lay a pile of Penny Magazines, a volume of' selections of poetry from various good authors, and a sufficient complement of newspapers. The room was rather cold, but of that the waiter gave a reasonable explanation in the fact that the fire had not been burning long.

Furs, however, might be dispensed with, or Fleda thought so; and taking off her bonnet, she endeavoured to rest her weary head against the sharp-cut top of the sofa-back, which seemed contrived expressly to punish and forbid all attempts at ease- seeking. The mere change of position was still comparative ease. But the black fox had not done duty yet. Its ample folds were laid over the sofa, cushion, back, and all, so as at once to serve for pillow and mattress; and Fleda being gently placed upon it, laid her face down again upon the soft fur, which gave a very kindly welcome not more to the body than to the mind. Fleda almost smiled as she felt that. The furs were something more than a pillow for her cheek they were the soft image of somewhat for her mind to rest on. But entirely exhausted, too much for smiles or tears, though both were near, she resigned herself as helplessly as an infant to the feeling of rest; and, in five minutes, was in a state of dreamy unconsciousness.

Mrs. Renney, who had slept a great part of the night, courted sleep anew in the rocking-chair, till breakfast should be ready; the other woman had found quarters in the lower part of the house; and Mr. Carleton stood still, with folded arms, to read at his leisure the fair face that rested so confidingly upon the black fur of his cloak, looking so very fair in the contrast. It was the same face he had known in time past the same, with only an alteration that had added new graces, but had taken away none of the old. Not one of the soft outlines had grown hard under Time's discipline: not a curve had lost its grace, or its sweet mobility; and yet the hand of Time had been there; for on brow and lip, and cheek and eyelid, there was that nameless, grave composure, which said touchingly, that hope had long ago clasped hands with submission. And, perhaps, that if hope's anchor had not been well placed, ay, even where it could not be moved, the storms of life might have beaten even hope from her ground, and made a clean sweep of desolation over all she had left. Not the storms of the last few weeks. Mr. Carleton saw and understood their work in the perfectly colourless and thin cheek. But these other finer drawn characters had taken longer to write. He did not know the instrument, but he read the handwriting, and came to his own resolutions therefrom.

Yet if not untroubled, she had remained unspotted by the world; that was as clear as the other. The slight eyebrow sat with its wonted calm purity of outline just where it used; the eyelid fell as quietly; the forehead above it was as unruffled; and if the mouth had a subdued gravity that it had taken years to teach, it had neither lost any of the sweetness, nor any of the simplicity of childhood. It was a strange picture that Mr. Carleton was looking at strange for its rareness. In this very matter of simplicity, that the world will never leave those who belong to it. Half sitting and half reclining, she had given herself to rest with the abandonment and self-forgetfulness of a child; her attitude had the very grace of a child's unconsciousness; and her face showed that, even in placing herself there, she had lost all thought of any other presence or any other eyes than her own; even of what her hand and cheek lay upon, and what it betokened. It meant something to Mr. Carleton, too; and if Fleda could have opened her eyes, she would have seen in those that were fixed upon her a happy promise for her future life. She was beyond making any such observations; and Mrs. Renney gave no interruption to his till the breakfast bell rang.

Mr. Carleton had desired the meal to be served in a private room. But he was met with a speech in which such a confusion of arguments endeavoured to persuade him to be of another mind, that he had at last given way. It was asserted that the ladies would have their breakfast a great deal quicker, and a great deal hotter, with the rest of the company; and in the same breath that it would be a very great favour to the house if the gentleman would not put them to the inconvenience of setting a separate table; the reasons of which inconvenience were set forth in detail, or would have been if the gentleman would have heard them; and desirous especially of haste, on Fleda's account, Mr. Carleton signified his willingness to let the house accommodate itself. Following the bell, a waiter now came to announce and conduct them to their breakfast.

Down the stairs, through sundry narrow turning passages, they went to a long low room at one corner of the house; where a table was spread for a very nondescript company, as it soon proved, many of their last night's companions having found their way thither. The two ladies, however, were given the chief posts at the head, as near as possible to a fiery hot stove, and served with tea and coffee from a neighbouring table, by a young lady in long ringlets, who was there probably for their express honour. But, alas for the breakfast! They might as good have had the comfort of a private room, for there was none other to be had. Of the tea and coffee it might be said, as once it was said of two bad roads "whichever one you take, you will wish you had taken the other;" the beefsteak was a problem of impracticability; and the chickens Fleda could not help thinking, that a well- to-do rooster which she saw flapping his wings in the yard, must, in all probability, be at that very moment endeavouring to account for a sudden breach in his social circle; and if the oysters had been some very fine ladies, they could hardly have retained less recollection of their original circumstances. It was in vain to try to eat or to drink; and Fleda returned to her sofa with even an increased appetite for rest, the more that her head began to take its revenge for the trials to which it had been put the past day and night.

She had closed her eyes again in her old position. Mrs. Renney was tying her bonnet-strings. Mr. Carleton was pacing up and down.

"Aren't you going to get ready, Miss Ringgan?" said the former.

"How soon will the cars be here?" exclaimed Fleda, starting up.

"Presently," said Mr. Carleton; "but," said he, coming up to her and taking her hands "I am going to prescribe for you again will you let me?"

Fleda's face gave small promise of opposition.

"You are not fit to travel now. You need some hours of quiet rest before we go any further."

"But when shall we get home?" said Fleda.

"In good time not by the railroad there is a nearer way that will take us to Queechy without going through Greenfield. I have ordered a room to be made ready for you will you try if it be habitable?"

Fleda submitted; and, indeed, there was in his manner a sort of gentle determination to which few women would have opposed themselves; besides that, her head threatened to make a journey a miserable business.

"You are ill now," said Mr. Carleton. "Cannot you induce your companion to stay and attend you?"

"I don't want her," said Fleda.

Mr. Carleton, however, mooted the question himself with Mrs. Renney, but she represented to him, though with much deference, that the care of her property must oblige her to go where and when it went. He rang, and ordered the housekeeper to be sent.

Presently after, a young lady in ringlets entered the room, and first taking a somewhat leisurely survey of the company, walked to the window, and stood there looking out. A dim recollection of her figure and air made Fleda query whether she were not the person sent for; but it was several minutes before it came into Mr. Carleton's head to ask if she belonged to the house.

"I do, Sir," was the dignified answer.

"Will you show this lady the room prepared for her. And take care that she wants nothing."

The owner of the ringlets answered not, but turning the front view of them full upon Fleda, seemed to intimate that she was ready to act as her guide. She hinted, however, that the rooms were very airy in winter, and that Fleda would stand a better chance of comfort where she was. But this Fleda would not listen to, and followed her adviser to the half-warmed, and certainly very airy apartment which had been got ready for her. It was probably more owing to something in her own appearance, than to Mr. Carleton's word of admonition on the subject, that her attendant was really assiduous and kind.

"Be you of this country?" she said, abruptly, after her good offices, as Fleda thought, were ended, and she had just closed her eyes.

She opened them again, and said "Yes."

"Well, that aint in the parlour, is he?"

"What?" said Fleda.

"One of our folks?"

"An American, you mean? No."

"I thought he wa'n't What is he?"

"He is English."

"Is he your brother?"

"No."

The young lady gave her a good look out of her large dark eyes, and remarking that "she thought they didn't look much like," left the room.

The day was spent by poor Fleda between pain and stupor, each of which acted in some measure to check the other too much exhausted for nervous pain, to reach the height it sometimes did, while yet that was sufficient to prevent stupor from sinking into sleep. Beyond any power of thought, or even fancy, with only a dreamy succession of images flitting across her mind, the hours passed, she knew not how; that they did pass, she knew from her handmaid in the long curls, who was every now and then coming in to look at her, and give her fresh water; it needed no ice. Her handmaid told her that the cars were gone by that it was near noon then, that it was past noon. There was no help for it; she could only lie still and wait; it was long past noon before she was able to move; and she was looking ill enough yet, when she at last opened the door of the parlour and slowly presented herself.

Mr. Carleton was there alone, Mrs. Renney having long since accompanied her baggage. He came forward instantly, and led Fleda to the sofa, with such gentle, grave kindness, that she could hardly bear it; her nerves had been in an unsteady state all day. A table was set, and partially spread with evidently much more care than the one of the morning, and Fleda sat looking at it, afraid to trust herself to look anywhere else. For years she had been taking care of others, and now there was something so strange in this feeling of being cared for, that her heart was full. Whatever Mr. Carleton saw or suspected of this, it did not appear. On the contrary, his manner and his talk on different matters was as cool, as quiet, as graceful, as if neither he nor Fleda had anything particular to think of; avoiding even an allusion to whatever might in the least distress her. Fleda thought she had a great many reasons to be grateful to him, but she never thanked him for anything more than at that moment she thanked him for the delicacy which so regarded her delicacy, and put her in a few minutes completely at her ease as she could be.

The refreshments were presently brought, and Fleda was served with them in a way that went, as far as possible, towards making them satisfactory; but, though a great improvement upon the morning, they furnished still but the substitute for a meal. There was a little pause then, after the horses were ordered.

"I am afraid you have wanted my former prescription to-day," said Mr. Carleton, after considering the little-improved colour of Fleda's face.

"I have, indeed."

"Where is it?"

Fleda hesitated, and then, in a little confusion, said, she supposed it was lying on Mrs. Evelyn's centre-table.

"How happens that?" said he, smiling.

"Because I could not help it, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with no little difficulty; "I was foolish, I could not bring it away."

He understood and was silent.

"Are you fit to bear a long ride in the cold?" he said, compassionately, a few minutes after.

"Oh, yes; it will do me good."

"You have had a miserable day, have you not?"

"My head has been pretty bad," said Fleda, a little evasively.

"Well, what would you have?" said he, lightly; "doesn't that make a miserable day of it?"

Fleda hesitated and coloured, and then, conscious that her cheeks were answering for her, coloured so exceedingly, that she was fain to put both her hands up to hide what they only served the more plainly to show. No advantage was taken. Mr. Carleton said nothing; she could not see what answer might be in his face. It was only by a peculiar quietness in his tone whenever he spoke to her afterwards that Fleda knew she had been thoroughly understood. She dared not lift her eyes.

They had soon employment enough around her. A sleigh and horses, better than anything else Quarrenton had been known to furnish, were carrying her rapidly towards home, the weather had perfectly cleared off, and in full brightness and fairness the sun was shining upon a brilliant world. It was cold indeed, though the only wind was that made by their progress; but Fleda had been again unresistingly wrapped in the furs, and was, for the time, beyond the reach of that or any other annoyance. She sat silently and quietly enjoying; so quietly that a stranger might have questioned there being any enjoyment in the case. It was a very picturesque, broken country, fresh covered with snow; and at that hour, late in the day, the lights and shadows were a constantly varying charm to the eye. Clumps of evergreens stood out in full disclosure against the white ground; the bare branches of neighbouring trees in all their barrenness, had a wild prospective or retrospective beauty peculiar to themselves. On the wavy white surface of the meadow land, or the steep hill- sides, lay every variety of shadow in blue and neutral tint; where they lay not, the snow was too brilliant to be borne. And afar off, through a heaven, bright and cold enough to hold the canopy over winter's head, the ruler of the day was gently preparing to say good-bye to the world. Fleda's eye seemed to be new set for all forms of beauty, and roved from one to the other as grave and bright as nature itself.

For a little way, Mr. Carleton left her to her musings, and was as silent as she. But then he gently drew her into a conversation that broke up the settled gravity of her face, and obliged her to divide her attention between nature and him, and his part of it he knew how to manage. But though eye and smile constantly answered him, he could win neither to a straightforward bearing.

They were about a mile from Queechy, when Fleda suddenly exclaimed

"Oh, Mr. Carleton, please stop the sleigh!"

The horses were stopped.

"It is only Earl Douglass, our farmer," Fleda said, in explanation: "I want to ask how they are at home?"

In answer to her nod of recognition, Mr. Douglass came to the side of the vehicle; but till he was there, close, gave her no other answer by word or sign; when there, broke forth his accustomed guttural "How d'ye do?"

"How d'ye do, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda. "How are they all at home?"

"Well, there aint nothin' new among 'em, as I've heerd on," said Earl, diligently though stealthily, at the same time qualifying himself to make a report of Mr. Carleton. "I guess they'll be glad to see you. I be."

"Thank you, Mr. Douglass. How is Hugh?"

"He aint nothin' different from what he's been for a spell back at least I ain't heerd that he was. Maybe he is, but if he is, I ha'n't heerd speak of it, and if he was, I think I should ha' heerd speak of it. He was pretty bad a spell ago about when you went away but he's been better sen. So they say. I ha'n't seen him. Well Flidda," he added, with somewhat of a sly gleam in his eye, "do you think you're going to make up your mind to stay to hum this time?"

"I have no immediate intention of running away, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda, her pale cheeks turning rose as she saw him looking curiously up and down the edges of the black fox. His eye came back to hers with a good- humoured intelligence that she could hardly stand.

"It's time you was back," said he. "Your uncle's to hum, but he don't do me much good, whatever he does to other folks, or himself nother, as far as the farm goes; there's that corn "

"Very well, Mr. Douglass," said Fleda, "I shall be at home now, and I'll see about it."

"Very good!" said Earl, as he stepped back, "Queechy can't get along without you, that's no mistake."

They drove on a few minutes in silence.

"Aren't you thinking, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, "that my countrymen are a strange mixture?"

"I was not thinking of them at all at this moment. I believe such a notion has crossed my mind."

"It has crossed mine very often," said Fleda.

"How do you read them? What is the basis of it?"

"I think, the strong self-respect which springs from the security and importance that republican institutions give every man. But," she added, colouring, "I have seen very little of the world, and ought not to judge."

"I have no doubt you are quite right," said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "But don't you think an equal degree of self-respect may consist with giving honour where honour is due?"

"Yes," said Fleda, a little doubtfully, "where religion and not republicanism is the spring of it."

"Humility and not pride," said he. "Yes, you are right."

"My countrymen do yield honour where they think it is due," said Fleda, "especially where it is not claimed. They must give it to reality, not to pretension. And, I confess, I would rather see them a little rude in their independence, than cringing before mere advantages of external position even for my own personal pleasure."

"I agree with you, Elfie, putting, perhaps, the last clause out of the question."

"Now, that man," said Fleda, smiling at his look "I suppose his address must have struck you as very strange; and yet there was no want of respect under it. I am sure he has a true thorough respect, and even regard for me, and would prove it on any occasion."

"I have no doubt of that."

"But it does not satisfy you?"

"Not quite. I confess I should require more from any one under my control."

"Oh, nobody is under control here," said Fleda. "That is, I mean, individual control, unless so far as self-interest comes in. I suppose that is all-powerful here as elsewhere."

"And the reason it gives less power to individuals is, that the greater freedom of resources makes no man's interest depend so absolutely on one other man. That is a reason you cannot regret. No, your countrymen have the best of it, Elfie. But, do you suppose that this is a fair sample of the whole country?"

"I dare not say that," said Fleda. "I am afraid there is not so much intelligence and cultivation everywhere. But I am sure there are many parts of the land that will bear a fair comparison with it."

"It is more than I would dare say for my own land."

"I should think" Fleda suddenly stopped.

"What?" said Mr. Carleton, gently.

"I beg your pardon, Sir I was going to say something very presumptuous."

"You cannot," he said in the same tone.

"I was going to say," said Fleda, blushing, "that I should think there might be a great deal of pleasure in raising the tone of mind and character among the people, as one could who had influence over a large neighbourhood."

His smile was very bright in answer.

"I have been trying that, Elfie, for the last eight years."

Fleda's eye looked now eagerly in pleasure and in curiosity for more. But he was silent.

"I was thinking a little while ago," he said, "of the time, once before, when I rode here with you when you were beginning to lead me to the problem I have been trying to work out ever since. When I left you in Paris, I went to resolve with myself the question, What I had to do in the world? Your little Bible was my invaluable help. I had read very little of it when I threw aside all other books; and my problem was soon solved. I saw that the life has no honour nor value which is not spent to the glory of God. I saw the end I was made for the happiness I was fitted for the dignity to which even a fallen creature may rise, through his dear Redeemer and Surety."

Fleda's eyes were down now. Mr. Carleton was silent a moment, watching one or two bright witnesses that fell from them.

"The next conclusion was easy that my work was at home I
have wanted my good fairy," Mr. Carleton went on, smiling.
"But I hope she will be contented to carry the standard of
Christianity, without that of republicanism."

"But Christianity tends directly to republicanism, Mr.
Carleton," said Fleda, trying to laugh.

"I know that," said he, smiling "and I am willing to know it. But the leaven of truth is one thing, and the powder train of the innovator is another."

Fleda sat thinking that she had very little in common with the layers of powder trains. She did not know the sleigh was passing Deepwater lake, till Mr. Carleton said

"I am glad, my dear Elfie, for your sake, that we are almost at the end of your journey."

"I should think you might be glad for your own sake, Mr.
Carleton."

"No my journey is not ended "

"Not?"

"No it will not be ended till I get back to New York, or rather till I find myself here again I shall make very little delay there "

"But you will not go any further to-night?" said Fleda, her eye this time meeting his fully.

"Yes I must take the first train to New York. I have some reason to expect my mother by this steamer."

"Back to New York!" said Fleda. "Then taking care of me has just hindered you in your business."

But even as she spoke, she read the truth in his eye, and her own fell in confusion.

"My business?" said he, smiling; "you know it now, Elfie. I arrived at Mrs. Evelyn's just after you had quitted it, intending to ask you to take the long-talked-of drive; and learned, to my astonishment, that you had left the city, and, as Edith kindly informed me, under no better guardianship than that in which I found you. I was just in time to reach the boat."

"And you ere in the boat night before last?"

"Certainly."

"I should have felt a great deal easier if I had known that," said Fleda.

"So should I," said he; "but you were invisible, till I discerned you in the midst of a crowd of people before me in the car."

Fleda was silent, till the sleigh stopped, and Mr. Carleton had handed her out.

"What's going to be done with this here trunk?" said heir driver, trying a tug at one handle.

"I will send somebody down to help you with it," said Fleda.
"It is too heavy for one alone."

"Well, I reckon it is," said he. "I guess you didn't know I was a cousin, did you?"

"No," said Fleda.

"I believe I be."

"Who are you?"

"I am Pierson Barnes. I live to Quarrenton for a year back.
Squire Joshua Springer's your uncle, aint he?"

"Yes, my father's uncle."

"Well, he's mine too. His sister's my mother."

"I'll send somebody to help you, Mr. Barnes."

She took Mr. Carleton's arm, and walked half the way up to the house without daring to look at him.

"Another specimen of your countrymen," he said, smiling.

There was nothing but quiet amusement in the tone, and there was not the shadow of anything else in his face. Fleda looked, and thanked him mentally, and drew breath easier. At the house-door he made a pause.

"You are coming in, Mr. Carleton?"

"Not now."

"It is a long drive to Greenfield, Mr. Carleton; you must not turn away from a country-house till we have shown ourselves unworthy to live in it. You will come in and let us give you something more substantial than those Quarrenton oysters. Do not say no," she said, earnestly, as she saw a refusal in his eye "I know what you are thinking of, but they do not know that you have been told anything it makes no difference."

She laid her gentle detaining hand, as irresistible in its way as most things, upon his arm, and he followed her in.

Only Hugh was in the sitting-room, and n a great easy-chair by the fire. It struck to Fleda's heart; but there was no time but for a flash of thought. He had turned his face and saw her. Fleda meant to have controlled herself and presented Mr. Carleton properly, but Hugh started up; he saw nothing but herself, and one view of the ethereal delicacy of his face made Fleda for a moment forget everything but him. They were in each other's arms, and then still as death. Hugh was unconscious that a stranger was there, and though Fleda was very conscious that one was there who was no stranger there was so much in both hearts, so much of sorrow and joy, and gratitude and tenderness, on the one part and on the other, so much that even if they had been alone lips could only have said silently that for a little while they kissed each other and wept in a passionate attempt to speak what their hearts were too full of.

Fleda at last whispered to Hugh that somebody else was there, and turned to make, as well as she might, the introduction. But Mr. Carleton did not need it, and made his own with that singular talent which in all circumstances, wherever he chose to exert it, had absolute power. Fleda saw Hugh's countenance change, with a kind of pleased surprise, and herself stood still under the charm for a minute; then she recollected she might be dispensed with. She took up her little spaniel, who was in an agony of gratulation at her feet, and went out into the kitchen.

"Well, do you mean to say you are here at last?" said Barby, her gray eyes flashing pleasure as she came forward to take the half hand which, owing to King's monopoly, was all Fleda had to give her. "Have you come home to stay, Fleda?"

"I am tired enough to be quiet," said Fleda. "But, dear Barby, what have you got in the house? I want supper as quickly as it can be had."

"Well, you do look dreadful bad," said Barby eyeing her. "Why, there aint much particular, Fleda; nobody's had any heart to eat lately; I thought I might a'most as well save myself the fuss of getting victuals. Hugh lives like a bird, and Mis' Rossitur aint much better, and I think all of 'em have been keeping their appetites till you came back; 'cept Philetus and me; we keep it up pretty well. Why, you're come home hungry, aint you?"

"No, not I," said Fleda; "but there's a gentleman here that came with me that must have something before he goes away again. What have you, Barby?"

"Who is he?" said Barby.

"A friend that took care of me on the way I'll tell you about it; but, in the meantime, supper, Barby."

"Is he a New Yorker, that one must be curious for?"

"As curious as you like," said Fleda, "but he is not a New
Yorker."

"Where is he from, then?" said Barby, who was busily putting on the tea-kettle.

"England."

"England!" said Barby, facing about. "Oh, if he's an
Englishman, I don't care for him, Fleda."

"But you care for me," said Fleda, laughing; "and for my sake don't let our hospitality fail to somebody who has been very kind to me, if he is an Englishman; and he is in haste to be off."

"Well, I don't know what we're a-going to give him," said Barby, looking at her. "There aint much in the pantry besides cold pork and beans, that Philetus and me made our dinner on they wouldn't have it in there, and eat nothing but some pickerel the doctor sent down and cold fish aint good for much."

"None of them left uncooked?"

"Yes, there's a couple he sent a great lot I guess he thought there was more in the family but two aint enough to go round; they're little ones."

"No, but put them down, and I'll make an omelette. Just get the things ready for me, Barby, will you, while I run up to see aunt Lucy. The hens have begun to lay?"

"La, yes Philetus fetches in lots of eggs he loves 'em, I reckon but you aint fit this minute to do a thing but rest, Fleda."

"I'll rest afterwards. Just get the things ready for me,
Barby, and an apron; and the table I'll be down in a minute.
And, Barby, grind some coffee, will you?"

But, as she turned to run upstairs, her uncle stood in her way, and the supper vanished from Fleda's head. His arms were open, and she was silently clasped in them, with so much feeling on both sides, that thought, and well nigh strength, for anything else on her part was gone. His smothered words of deep blessing overcame her. Fleda could do nothing but sob, in distress, till she recollected Barby. Putting her arms round his neck, then she whispered to him that Mr. Carleton was in the other room, and shortly explained how he came to be there, and begged her uncle would go in and see him till supper should be ready. Enforcing this request with a parting kiss on his cheek, she ran off up stairs. Mr. Rossitur looked extremely moody and cloudy for a few minutes, and then went in and joined his guest. Mrs. Rossitur and her daughter could not be induced to show themselves.

Little Rolf, however, had no scruples of any kind. He presently edged himself into the room to see the stranger, whom he no sooner saw than, with a joyous exclamation, he bounded forward to claim an old friend.

"Why, Mr. Carleton," exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, in surprise, "I was not aware that this young gentleman had the honour of your acquaintance."

"But I have," said Rolf.

"In London, Sir, I had that pleasure," said Mr. Carleton.

"I think it was I had the pleasure," said Rolf, pounding one hand upon Mr. Carleton's knee.

"Where is your mother?"

"She wouldn't come down," said Rolf; "but I guess she will when she knows who is here"

And he was darting away to tell her, when Mr. Carleton, within whose arms he stood, quietly restrained him, and told him he was going away presently, but would come again and see his mother another time.

"Are you going back to England, Sir?"

"By and by."

"But you will come here again first?"

"Yes, if Mr. Rossitur will let me."

"Mr. Carleton knows he commands his own welcome," said that gentleman, somewhat stately. "Go and tell your aunt Fleda that tea is ready, Rolf."

"She knows," said Rolf. "She was making an omelette I guess it was for this gentleman."

Whose name he was not clear of yet. Mr. Rossitur looked vexed, but Hugh laughed, and asked if his aunt gave him leave to tell that. Rolf entered forthwith into discussion on this subject, while Mr. Carleton, who had not seemed to hear it, engaged Mr. Rossitur busily in another, till the omelette and Fleda came in. Rolf's mind, however, was ill at ease.

"Aunt Fleda," said he, as soon as she had fairly taken her place at the head of the table, "would you mind my telling that you made the omelette for this gentleman?"

Fleda cast a confused glance, first at the person in question and then round the table; but Mr. Carleton, without looking at her, answered instantly

"Don't you understand, Rolf, that the same kindness which will do a favour for a friend, will keep him in ignorance of it?"

Rolf pondered a moment, and then burst forth

"Why, Sir, wouldn't you like it as well for knowing she made it?"

It was hardly in human gravity to stand this. Fleda herself laughed, but Mr. Carleton, as unmoved as possible, answered him, "Certainly not," and Rolf was nonplussed.

The supper was over. Hugh had left the room, and Mr. Rossitur had before that gone out to give directions about Mr. Carleton's horses. He and Fleda were left alone.

"I have something against you, fairy," said he, lightly, taking her hand, and putting it to his lips. "You shall not again do me such honour as you have done me to-day I did not deserve it, Elfie."

The last words were spoken half reproachfully. Fleda stood a moment motionless, and then by some curious revulsion of feeling, put both her hands to her face and burst into tears.

She struggled against them, and spoke almost immediately

"You will think me very foolish, Mr. Carleton I am ashamed of myself but I have lived here so long in this way my spirits have grown so quieted by different things, that it seems, sometimes, as if I could not bear anything I am afraid"

"Of what, my dear Elfie?"

But she did not answer, and her tears came again.

"You are weary and spent," he said, gently, repossessing himself of one of her hands. "I will ask you another time what you are afraid of, and rebuke all your fears."

"I deserve nothing but rebuke now," said Fleda.

But her hand knew, by the gentle and quiet clasp in which it lay, that there was no disposition to give it.

"Do not speak to me for a minute," she said, hastily, as she heard some one coming.

She went to the window, and stood there looking out, till Mr.
Carleton came to bid her good-bye.

"Will you permit me to say to Mrs. Evelyn," he said, in a low tone, "that you left a piece of your property in her house, and have commissioned me to bring it you?"

"Yes," said Fleda, hesitating, and looking a little confused; "but will you let me write a note instead, Mr. Carleton?"

"Certainly! but what are you thinking of, Elfie? what grave doubt is lying under your brow?"

All Fleda's shadows rolled away before that clear, bright eye.

"I have found by experience," she said, smiling a little, but looking down, "that whenever I tell my secret thoughts to anybody, I have some reason afterwards to be sorry for it."

"You shall make me an exception to your rule, however, Elfie."

Fleda looked up, one of her looks, half questioning, half fearing, and then answered, a little hesitating

"I was afraid, Sir, that if you went to Mrs. Evelyn's on that errand I was afraid you would show them you were displeased."

"And what then?" said he, quietly.

"Only that I wanted to spare them what always gives me a cold chill."

"Gives you!" said Mr. Carleton.

"No, Sir only by sympathy I thought my agency would be the gentlest."

"I see I was right," she said, looking up, as he did not answer; "but they don't deserve it not half so much as you think. They talk they don't know what. I am sure they never meant half they said never meant to annoy me with it, I mean and I am sure they have a true love for me they have shown it in a great many ways. Constance, especially, never showed me anything else. They have been very kind to me; and as to letting me come away as they did, I suppose they thought I was in a greater hurry to get home than I really was; and they would very likely not have minded travelling so themselves; I am so different from them, that they might in many things judge me by themselves, and yet judge far wrong."

Fleda was going on, but she suddenly became aware that the eye to which she was speaking had ceased to look at the Evelyns, even in imagination, and she stopped short.

"Will you trust me, after this, to see Mrs. Evelyn without the note?" said he, smiling.

But Fleda gave him her hand, very demurely, without raising her eyes again, and he went.

Barby, who had come in to clear away the table, took her stand at the window to watch Mr. Carleton drive off. Fleda had retreated to the fire. Barby looked in silence till the sleigh was out of sight.

"Is he going back to England now?" she said, coming back to the table.

"No."

Barby gathered a pile of plates together, and then inquired

"Is he going to settle in America?"

"Why, no, Barby! What makes you ask such a thing?"

"I thought he looked as if he had dressed himself for a cold climate," said Barby, drily.

Fleda sat down by Hugh's easy-chair, and laid her head on his breast.

"I like your Mr. Carleton very much," Hugh whispered, after a while.

"Do you?" said Fleda, a little wondering at Hugh's choice of that particular pronominal adjective.

"Very much indeed. But he has changed, Fleda."

"Yes in some things some great things."

"He says he is coming again," said Hugh.

Fleda's heart beat. She was silent.

"I am very glad," repeated Hugh, "I like him very much. But you won't leave me, Fleda, will you?"

"Leave you?" said Fleda, looking at him.

"Yes," said Hugh, smiling, and drawing her head down again: "I always thought what he came over here for. But you will stay with me while I want you, Fleda?"

"While you want me!" said Fleda, again.

"Yes it won't be long."

"What won't be long?"

"I," said Hugh, quietly. "Not long. I am very glad I shall not leave you alone, dear Fleda very glad! promise me you will not leave me any more."

"Don't talk so, dear Hugh!"

"But it is true, Fleda," said Hugh, gently. "I know it. I sha'n't be here, but a little while. I am so glad you are come home, dear Fleda! You will not let anybody take you away till I am gone first?"

Fleda drew her arm close around Hugh's neck, and was still still even to his ear for a good while. A hard battle must be fought, and she must not be weak, for his sake, and for everybody's sake. Others of the family had come, or were coming into the room. Hugh waited till a short breath, but freer drawn, told him he might speak.

"Fleda," he whispered.

"What?"

"I am very happy. I only want your promise about that."

"I can't talk to you, Hugh."

"No; but promise me."

"What?"

"That you will not let anybody take you away while I want you."

"I am sure he would not ask it," said Fleda, hiding her cheeks and eyes at once in his breast.

CHAPTER XXII.

"Do you think I shall not love a sad Pamela as well as a
joyful!"
SIDNEY.

Mr. Carleton came back without his mother; she had chosen to put off her voyage till spring. He took up his quarters at Montepoole, which, far though it was, was yet the nearest point where his notions of ease could have freedom enough.

One would have thought that saw him those most nearly concerned almost did think that in his daily coming to Queechy, Mr. Carleton sought everybody's pleasure rather than his own. He was Fleda's most gentle and kind assistant in taking care of Hugh, soon dearly valued by the sick one, who watched for and welcomed his coming as a bright spot in the day; and loved particularly to have Mr. Carleton's hand do anything for him, rather than almost any other. His mother's was too feeling; Fleda's, Hugh often feared, was weary; and his father's, though gentle to him as to an infant, yet lacked the mind's training. And though Marion was his sister in blood, Guy was his brother in better bonds. The deep blue eye that little Fleda had admired, Hugh learned to love and rest on singularly.

To the rest of the family, Mr. Carleton's influence was more soothing and cheering than any cause beside. To all but the head of it. Even Mrs. Rossitur, after she had once made up her mind to see him, could not bear to be absent when he was in the house. The dreaded contrast with old times gave no pain, either to her or Marion. Mr. Carleton forgot so completely that there was any difference, that they were charmed into forgetting it too. But Mr. Rossitur's pride lay deeper, or had been less humbled by sorrow; the recollections that his family let slip never failed to gall him, when Mr. Carleton was present; and if now and then, for a moment, these were banished by his guest's graces of mind and manner, the next breath was a sigh for the circles and the pleasures they served to recall, now seeming for ever lost to him. Mr. Carleton perceived that his company gave pain and not pleasure to his host, and for that reason was the less in the house, and made his visits to Hugh at times when Mr. Rossitur was not in the way. Fleda he took out of the house and away with him, for her good and his own.

To Fleda, the old childish feeling came back, that she was in somebody's hands who had a marvellous happy way of managing things about her, and even of managing herself. A kind of genial atmosphere, that was always doing her good, yet so quietly and so skilfully, that she could only now and then get a chance even to look her thanks. Quietly and efficiently he was exerting himself to raise the tone of her mind, to brighten her spirits, to reach those sober lines that years of patience had drawn round her eye, and mouth, and charm them away. So gently, so indirectly, by efforts so wisely and gracefully aimed, he set about it, that Fleda did not know what he was doing; but he knew. He knew when he saw her brow unbend, and her eye catch its old light sparkle, that his conversation and the thoughts and interests with which he was rousing her mind or fancy, were working and would work all he pleased. And though the next day he might find the old look of patient gravity again, he hardly wished it not there, for the pleasure of doing it away. Hugh's anxious question to Fleda had been very uncalled for, and Fleda's assurance was well grounded; that subject was never touched upon.

Fleda's manner with Mr. Carleton was peculiar and characteristic. In the house, before others, she was as demure and reserved as though he had been a stranger; she never placed herself near him, nor entered into conversation with him, unless when he obliged her; but when they were alone there was a frank confidence and simplicity in her manner that most happily answered the high-bred delicacy that had called it out.

One afternoon of a pleasant day in March, Fleda and Hugh were sitting alone together in the sick-room. Hugh was weaker than usual but not confined to his bed; he was in his great easy- chair, which had been moved up stairs for him again. Fleda had been repeating hymns.

"You are tired," Hugh said.

"No."

"There's something about you that isn't strong," said Hugh, fondly. "I wonder where is Mr. Carleton to-day. It is very pleasant, isn't it?"

"Very pleasant and warm; it is like April; the snow all went off yesterday, and the ground is dry except in spots."

"I wish he would come and give you a good walk. I have noticed how you always come back looking so much brighter after one of your walks or rides with him."

"What makes you think so, dear Hugh?" said Fleda, a little troubled.

"Only my eyes," said Hugh, smiling. "It does me as much good as you, Fleda."

"I never want to go and leave you, Hugh."

"I am very glad there is somebody to take you. I wish he would come. You want it this minute."

"I don't think I shall let him take me if he comes."

"Whither? and whom?" said another voice.

"I didn't know you were there, Sir," said Fleda, suddenly rising.

"I am but just here Rolf admitted me as he passed out."

Coming in between them, and still holding the hand of one, Mr.
Carleton bent down towards the other.

"How is Hugh to-day?"

It was pleasant to see that meeting of eyes the grave kindliness on the one side, the confident affection on the other. But the wasted features said as plainly as the tone of Hugh's gentle reply, that he was passing away fast.

"What shall I do for you?"

"Take Fleda out and give her a good walk. She wants it."

"I will, presently. You are weary what shall I do to rest you?"

"Nothing," said Hugh, closing his eyes with a very placid look; "unless you will put me in mind of something about heaven, Mr. Carleton."

"Shall I read to you? Baxter or something else?"

"No just give me something to think of while you're gone as you have done before, Mr. Carleton."

"I will give you two or three of the Bible bits on that subject; they are but hints and indications, you know rather rays of light that stream out from the place than any description of it; but you have only to follow one of these indications and see whither it will lead you. The first I recollect is that one spoken to Abraham, 'Fear not I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.' "

"Don't go any further, Mr. Carleton," said Hugh, with a smile.
"Fleda do you remember?"

They sat all silent, quite silent, all three, for nobody knew how long.

"You were going to walk," said Hugh, without looking at them.

Fleda, however, did not move till a word or two from Mr.
Carleton had backed Hugh's request; then she went.

"Is she gone?" said Hugh. "Mr. Carleton, will you hand me that little desk?"

It was his own. Mr. Carleton brought it. Hugh opened it, and took out a folded paper, which he gave to Mr. Carleton, saying that he thought he ought to have it.

"Do you know the handwriting, Sir?"

"No."

"Ah! she has scratched it so. It is Fleda's."

Hugh shut his eyes again, and Mr. Carleton seeing that he had settled himself to sleep, went to the window with the paper. It hardly told him anything he did not know before, though set in a fresh light.

"Cold blew the east wind,
And thick fell the rain
I look'd for the tops
Of the mountains in vain;
Twilight was gathering,
And dark grew the west,
And the wood-fire's crackling
Toned well with the rest.

"Speak fire, and tell me
Thy flickering flame
Fell on me in years past
Say, am I the same?
Has my face the same brightness
In those days it wore ?
My foot the same lightness,
As it crosses the floor?

"Methinks there are changes
I am weary to-night
I once was as tireless
As the bird on her flight:
My bark, in full measure,
Threw foam from the prow
Not even for pleasure
Would I care to move now.

" 'Tis not the foot only
That lieth thus still
I am weary in spirit
I am listless in will.
My eye vainly peereth
Through the darkness, to find
Some object that cheereth
Some light for the mind.

"What shadows come o'er me
What things of the past
Bright things of my childhood
That fled all too fast;
The scenes where light roaming,
My foot wandered free,
Come back through the gloamin'
Come all back to me.

"The cool autumn evening,
The fair summer morn
The dress and the aspect
Some dear ones have worn
The sunshiny places
The shady hill side
The words and the faces
That might not abide.

"Die out, little fire
Ay, blacken and pine!
So have paled many lights
That were brighter than thine.
I can quicker thy embers
Again with a breath,
But the others lie cold
In the ashes of death."

Mr. Carleton had read near through the paper before Fleda came in.

"I have kept you a long time, Mr. Carleton," she said, coming up to the window; "I found aunt Lucy wanted me."

But she saw with a little surprise the deepening eye which met her, and which showed, she knew, the working of strong feeling. Her own eye went to the paper in search of explanation.

"What have you there? Oh, Mr. Carleton," she said, putting her hand over it "please to give it to me!"

Fleda's face was very much in earnest. He took the hand, but did not give her the paper, and looked his refusal.

"I am ashamed you should see that! Who gave it to you?"

"You shall wreak your displeasure on no one but me," he said, smiling.

"But have you read it?"

"Yes."

"I am very sorry!"

"I am very glad, my dear Elfie."

"You will think you will think what wasn't true it was just a mood I used to get into once in a while I used to be angry with myself for it, but I could not help it one of those listless fits would take me now and then "

"I understand it, Elfie."

"I am very sorry you should know I ever felt or wrote so."

"Why?"

"It is very foolish and wrong "

"Is that a reason for my not knowing it?"

"No not a good one. But you have read it now wont you let me have it?"

"No I shall ask for all the rest of the portfolio, Elfie," he said, as he put it in a place of security.

"Pray, do not!" said Fleda, most unaffectedly.

"Why?"

"Because I remember Mrs. Carleton says you always have what you ask for."

"Give me permission to put on your bonnet, then?" said he, laughingly, taking it from her hand.

The air was very sweet, he footing pleasant. The first few steps of the walk were made by Fleda in silence, with eager breath, and a foot that grew lighter as it trod.

"I don't think it was a right mood of mind I had when I wrote that," she said. "It was morbid. But I couldn't help it. Yet if one could keep possession of those words you quoted just now, I suppose one never would have morbid feelings, Mr. Carleton?"

"Perhaps not; but human nature has a weak hold of anything, and many things may make it weaker."

"Mine is weak," said Fleda. "But it is possible to keep firm hold of those words, Mr. Carleton?"

"Yes by strength that is not human nature's and, after all, the firm hold is rather that in which we are held, or ours would soon fail. The very hand that makes the promise its own must be nerved to grasp it. And so it is best, for it keeps us looking off always to the Author and Finisher of our faith."

"I love those words," said Fleda. "But, Mr. Carleton, how shall one be sure that one has a right to those other words those, I mean, that you told to Hugh? One cannot take the comfort of them unless one is sure."

Her voice trembled.

"My dear Elfie, the promises have many of them their double stamped with the very same signet and if that sealed counterpart is your own, it is the sure earnest and title to the whole value of the promise."

"Well in this case?" said Fleda, eagerly.

"In this case, God says, 'I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.' Now, see if your own heart can give the countersign 'Thou art my portion, O Lord!' "

Fleda's head sank instantly, and almost lay upon his arm.

"If you have the one, my dear Elfie, the other is yours it is the note of hand of the maker of the promise sure to be honoured. And if you want proof, here it is and a threefold cord is not soon broken 'Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.' "

There was a pause of some length. Fleda had lifted up her head, but walked along very quietly, not seeming to care to speak.

"Have you the countersign, Elfie?"

Fleda flashed a look at him, and only restrained herself from weeping again.

"Yes. But so I had then, Mr. Carleton only sometimes I got those fits of feeling I forgot it, I suppose."

"When were these verses written?"

"Last fall uncle Rolf was away, and aunt Lucy unhappy and,
I believe, I was tired. I suppose it was that."

For a matter of several rods, each was busy with his own musings. But Mr. Carleton bethought himself.

"Where are you, Elfie?"

"Where am I?"

"Yes Not at Queechy?"

"No, indeed" said Fleda, laughing. "Far enough away."

"Where?"

"At Paris at the Marché des Innocens."

"How did you get to Paris?"

"I don't know by a bridge of associations, I suppose, resting one end on last year, and the other on the time when I was eleven years old."

"Very intelligible," said Mr. Carleton, smiling.

"Do you remember that morning, Mr. Carleton, when you took
Hugh and me to the Marché des Innocens?"

"Perfectly."

"I have thanked you a great many times since for getting up so early that morning."

"I think I was well paid at the time. I remember I thought I had seen one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen in Paris."

"So I thought!" said Fleda. "It has been a pleasant picture in my imagination ever since."

There was a curious curl in the corners of Mr. Carleton's mouth, which made Fleda look an inquiry a look so innocently wistful, that his gravity gave way.

"My dear Elfie!" said he, "you are the very child you were then."

"Am I?" said Fleda. "I dare say I am, for I feel so. I have the very same feeling I used to have then, that I am a child, and you taking the care of me into your own hands."

"One half of that is true, and the other half nearly so."

"How good you always were to me!" Fleda said, with a sigh.

"Not necessary to balance the debtor and creditor items on both sides," he said, with a smile, "as the account bids fair to run a good while."

A silence again, during which Fleda is clearly not enjoying the landscape nor the fine weather.

"Elfie what are you meditating?"

She came back from her meditations with a very frank look.

"I was thinking Mr. Carleton of your notions about female education."

"Well?"

They had paused upon a rising ground. Fleda hesitated, and then looked up in his face.

"I am afraid you will find me wanting, and when you do, will you put me in the way of being all you wish me to be?"

Her look was ingenuous and tender, equally. He gave her no answer, except by the eye of grave intentness that fixed hers till she could meet it no longer, and her own fell. Mr. Carleton recollected himself.

"My dear Elfie," said he, and whatever the look had meant, Elfie was at no loss for the tone now "what do you consider yourself deficient in?"

Fleda spoke with a little difficulty.

"I am afraid, in a good many things in general reading and in what are called accomplishments "

"You shall read as much as you please, by and by," said he, "provided you will let me read with you; and, as for the other want, Elfie, it is rather a source of gratification to me."

Elfie very naturally asked "Why?"

"Because, as soon as I have the power, I shall immediately constitute myself your master in the arts of riding and drawing, and in any other art or acquisition you may take a fancy to, and give you lessons diligently."

"And will there be gratification in that?" said Fleda.

His answer was by a smile. But he somewhat mischievously asked her, "Will there not?" and Fleda was quiet.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Friends, I sorrow not to leave ye;
If this life an exile be,
We who leave it do but journey
Homeward to our family."
SPANISH BALLAD.

The first of April came.

Mr. Rossitur had made up his mind not to abide at Queechy, which only held him now by the frail thread of Hugh's life. Mr. Carleton knew this, and had even taken some steps towards securing for him a situation in the West Indies. But it was unknown to Fleda; she had not heard her uncle say anything on the subject since she came home; and though aware that their stay was a doubtful matter, she still thought it might be as well to have the garden in order. Philetus could not be trusted to do everything wisely of his own head, and even some delicate jobs of hand could not be safely left to his skill; if the garden was to make any head-way, Fleda's head and hand must both be there, she knew. So, as the spring opened, she used to steal away from the house every morning for an hour or two, hardly letting her friends know what she was about, to make sure that peas, and potatoes, and radishes, and lettuce, were in the right places at the right times, and to see that the later and more delicate vegetables were preparing for. She took care to have this business well over before the time that Mr. Carleton ever arrived from the Pool.

One morning she was busy in dressing the strawberry beds, forking up the ground between the plants, and filling the vacancies that the severe winter or some irregularities of fall dressing had made. Mr. Skillcorn was rendering a somewhat inefficient help, or, perhaps, amusing himself with seeing how she worked. The little old silver-grey hood was bending down over the strawberries, and the fork was going at a very energetic rate.

"Philetus "

"Marm!"

"Will you bring me that bunch of strawberry plants that lies at the corner of the beds, in the walk? and my trowel?"

"I will!" said Mr. Skillcorn.

It was, another hand, however, that brought them and laid them beside her; but Fleda, very intent upon her work, and hidden under her close hood, did not find it out. She went on busily putting in the plants as she found room for them, and just conscious, as she thought, that Philetus was still standing at her side, she called upon him from time to time, or merely stretched out her hand, for a fresh plant as she had occasion for it.

"Philetus," she said at length, raising her voice a little that it might win to him round the edge of her hood, without turning her face "I wish you would get the ground ready for that other planting of potatoes you needn't stay to help me any longer."

" 'Tain't me, I guess," said the voice of Philetus, on the other side of her.

Fleda looked in astonishment to make sure that it really was Mr. Skillcorn proceeding along the garden path in that quarter, and turning, jumped up and dropped her trowel and fork, to have her hands otherwise occupied. Mr. Skillcorn walked off leisurely towards the potato ground, singing to himself in a kind of consolatory aside

"I cock'd up my beaver, and who but I!
The lace in my hat was so gallant and so gay,
That I flourished like a king in his own countray."

"There is one of your countrymen that is an odd variety, certainly," said Mr. Carleton, looking after him with a very comic expression of eye.

"Is he not?" said Fleda. "And hardly a common one. There never was a line more mathematically straight than the course of Philetus's ideas; they never diverge, I think, to the right hand or the left, a jot from his own self-interest."

"You will be an invaluable help to me, Elfie, if you can read my English friends as closely."

"I am afraid you will not let me come as close to them," said
Fleda, laughing.

"Perhaps not. I shouldn't like to pay too high a premium for the knowledge. How is Hugh, to-day?"

Fleda answered, with a quick change of look and voice, that he was much as usual.

"My mother has written me that she will be here by the 'Europa,' which is due to-morrow. I must set off for New York this afternoon; therefore I came so early to Queechy."

Fleda was instinctively pulling off her gardening gloves, as they walked towards the house.

"Aunt Miriam wants to see you, Mr. Carleton she begged I would ask you to come there some time "

"With great pleasure. Shall we go there now, Elfie?"

"I will be ready in five minutes."

Mrs. Rossitur was alone in the breakfast-room when they went in. Hugh, she reported, was asleep, and would be just ready to see Mr. Carleton by the time they got back. They stood a few minutes talking, and then Fleda went to get ready.

Both pair of eyes followed her as she left the room, and then met with perfect understanding.

"Will you give your child to me, Mrs. Rossitur?" said the gentleman.

"With all my heart!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur, bursting into tears "even if I were left alone entirely "

Her agitation was uncontrolled for a minute; and then she said, with feeling seemingly too strong to be kept in

"If I were only sure of meeting her in heaven, I could be content to be without her till then!"

"What is in the way, my dear Madam?" said Mr. Carleton, with a gentle sympathy that touched the very spring he meant it should. Mrs. Rossitur waited a minute, but it was only till tears would let her speak, and then said like a child

"Oh, it is all darkness!"

"Except this," said he, gently and clearly, "that Jesus Christ is a sun and a shield; and those that put themselves at His feet are safe from all fear, and they who go to Him for light shall complain of darkness no more."

"But I do not know how "

"Ask Him, and He will tell you."

"But I am unworthy even to look up towards Him," said Mrs.
Rossitur, struggling, it seemed, between doubts and wishes.

"He knows that, and yet He has bid you come to Him. He knows that; and, knowing it, He has taken your responsibility, and paid your debt, and offers you now a clean discharge, if you will take it at His hand; and for the other part of this unworthiness, that blood cannot do away, blood has brought the remedy

Shall we, who are evil, give good things to our children; and shall not our Father, which is in heaven, give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"

"But must I do nothing?" said Mrs. Rossitur, when she had remained quiet, with her face in her hands, for a minute or two after he had done speaking.

"Nothing but be willing be willing to have Christ in all His offices, as your Teacher, your King, and your Redeemer; give yourself to Him, dear Mrs. Rossitur, and He will take care of the rest."

"I am willing!" she exclaimed. Fresh tears came, and came freely. Mr. Carleton said no more, till; hearing some noise of opening and shutting doors above stairs, Mrs. Rossitur hurriedly left the room, and Fleda came in by the other entrance.

"May I take you a little out of the way, Mr. Carleton?" she said, when they had passed through the Deepwater settlement. "I have a message to carry to Mrs. Elster a poor woman out here beyond the Lake. It is not a disagreeable place."

"And what if it were?"

"I should not, perhaps, have asked you to go with me," said
Fleda, a little doubtfully.

"You may take me where you will, Elfie," he said, gently. "I hope to do as much by you some day."

Fleda looked up at the piece of elegance beside her, and thought what a change must have come over him if he would visit poor places. He was silent and grave, however, and so was she, till they arrived at the house they were going to.

Certainly it was not a disagreeable place. Barb's much less strong-minded sister had at least a good share of her practical nicety. The little board path to the door was clean and white still, with possibly a trifle less brilliant effect. The room and its old inhabitants were very comfortable and tidy the patchwork counterpane as gay as ever. Mrs. Elster was alone, keeping company with a snug little wood fire, which was near as much needed in that early spring weather as it had been during the winter.

Mr. Carleton had come back from his abstraction, and stood, taking half unconscious note of these things, while Fleda was delivering her message to the old woman. Mrs. Elster listened to her implicitly, with, every now and then, an acquiescing nod or ejaculation; but so soon as Fleda had said her say, she burst out, with a voice that had never known the mufflings of delicacy, and was now pitched entirely beyond its owner's ken. Looking hard at Mr. Carleton

"Fleda! Is this the gentleman that's to be your husband?"

The last word elevated and brought out with emphatic distinctness of utterance.

If the demand had been, whether the gentleman in question was a follower of Mohammed, it would hardly have been more impossible for Fleda to give an affirmative answer; but Mr. Carleton laughed, and, bringing his face a little nearer the old crone, answered

"So she has promised, Ma'am ."

It was curious to see the lines of the old woman's face relax as she looked at him.

"He's worthy of you, as far as looks goes," she said, in the same key as before, apostrophising Fleda, who had drawn back, but not stirring her eyes from Mr. Carleton all the time. And then she added to him, with a little, satisfied nod, and in a very decided tone of information

"She will make you a good wife."

"Because she has made a good friend?" said Mr. Carleton, quietly. "Will you let me be a friend, too?"

He had turned the old lady's thoughts into a golden channel, whence, as she was an American, they had no immediate issue in words; and Fleda and Mr. Carleton left the house without anything more.

Fleda felt nervous. But Mr. Carleton's first words were as coolly and as gravely spoken as if they had just come out from a philosophical lecture; and with an immediate spring of relief, she enjoyed every step of the way, and every word of the conversation, which was kept up with great life till they reached Mrs. Plumfield's door.

No one was in the sitting-room. Fleda left Mr. Carleton there, and passed gently into the inner apartment, the door of which was standing ajar.

But her heart absolutely leaped into her mouth, for Dr. Quackenboss and Mr. Olmney were there on either side of her aunt's bed. Fleda came forward and shook hands.

"This is quite a meeting of friends," said the doctor, blandly, yet with a perceptible shading of the whilome broad sunshine of his face. "Your a aunt, my dear Miss Ringgan, is in a most extraordinary state of mind!"

Fleda was glad to hide her face against her aunt's, and asked her how she did.

"Dr. Quackenboss thinks it extraordinary, Fleda," said the old lady, with her usual cheerful sedateness, "that one who has trusted God, and had constant experience of His goodness and faithfulness for forty years, should not doubt Him at the end of it."

"You have no doubt of any kind, Mrs. Plumfield?" said the clergyman.

"Not the shadow of a doubt!" was the hearty, steady reply.

"You mistake, my dear Madam," said Dr. Quackenboss, "pardon me it is not that: I would be understood to say, merely, that I do not comprehend how such a such security can be attained respecting what seems so a elevated and difficult to know."

"Only by believing," said Mrs. Plumfield, with a very calm smile. " 'He that believeth on Him shall not be ashamed;' 'shall not be ashamed!' " she repeated, slowly.

Dr. Quackenboss looked at Fleda, who kept her eyes fixed upon her aunt.

"But it seems to me I beg pardon; perhaps I am arrogant" he said, with a little bow; "but it appears to me almost in a manner almost presumptuous, not to be a little doubtful in such a matter until the time comes. Am I do you disapprove of me, Mr. Olmney?"

Mr. Olmney silently referred him for his answer to the person he had first addressed, who had closed her eyes while he was speaking.

"Sir," she said, opening them, "it can't be presumption to obey God, and He tells me to rejoice. And I do I do! 'Let all those that love thee rejoice in thee, and be glad in thee!' But mind!" she added, energetically, fixing her strong grey eve upon him, "He does not tell you to rejoice do not think it not while you stand aloof from His terms of peace. Take God at His word, and be happy; but if not, you have nothing to do with the song that I sing!"

The doctor stared at her till she had done speaking, and then slunk out of her range of vision behind the curtains of the bed-post. Not silenced, however.

"But a Mr. Olmney," said he, hesitating, "don't you think that there is in general a a becoming modesty, in a in people that have done wrong, as we all have putting off being sure until they are so? It seems so to me!"

"Come here, Dr. Quackenboss," said aunt Miriam.

She waited till he came to her side, and then taking his hand, and looking at him very kindly, she said

"Sir, forty years ago I found in the Bible, as you say, that I was a sinner, and that drove me to look for something else. I found then God's promise, that if I would give my dependence entirely to the Substitute he had provided for me, and yield my heart to his service, he would, for Christ's sake, hold me quit of all my debts, and be my father, and make me his child. And, Sir, I did it. I abhor every other dependence the things you count good in me I reckon but filthy rags. At the same time, I know that ever since that day, forty years ago, I have lived in his service, and tried to live to his glory. And now, Sir, shall I disbelieve his promise? do you think he would be pleased if I did?"

The doctor's mouth was stopped, for once, He drew back as soon as he could, and said not another word.

Before anybody had broken the silence, Seth came in; and after shaking hands with Fleda, startled her by asking, whether that was not Mr. Carleton in the other room.

"Yes," Fleda said "he came to see aunt Miriam."

"Aint you well enough to see him, mother?"

"Quite and very happy," she said.

Seth immediately went back and invited him in. Fleda dared not look up while the introductions were passing of "the Rev. Mr. Olmney," and of "Dr. Quackenboss," the former of whom Mr. Carleton took cordially by the hand, while Dr. Quackenboss, conceiving that his hand must be as acceptable, made his salutations with an indescribable air, at once of attempted gracefulness and ingratiation. Fleda saw the whole in the advancing line of the doctor's person, a vision of which crossed her downcast eye. She drew back then, for Mr. Carleton came where she was standing, to take her aunt's hand; Seth had absolutely stayed his way before to make the said introductions.

Mrs. Plumfield was little changed by years or disease since he had seen her. There was somewhat more of a look of bodily weakness than there used to be; but the dignified, strong- minded expression of the face was even heightened; eye and brow were more pure and unclouded in their steadfastness. She looked very earnestly at her visitor, and then with evident pleasure from the manner of his look and greeting. Fleda watched her eye softening with a gratified expression, and fixed upon him, as he was gently talking to her.

Mr. Olmney presently came round to take leave, promising to see her another time; and passing Fleda, with a frank grave pressure of the hand, which gave her some pain. He and Seth left the room. Fleda was hardly conscious that Dr. Quackenboss was still standing at the foot of the bed, making the utmost use of his powers of observation. He could use little else, for Mr. Carleton and Mrs. Plumfield, after a few words on each side, had, as it were, by common consent, come to a pause. The doctor, when a sufficient time had made him fully sensible of this, walked up to Fleda, who wished heartily at the moment that she could have presented the reverse end of the magnet to him. Perhaps, however, it was that very thing which, by a perverse sort of attraction, drew him towards her.

"I suppose a we may conclude," said he, with a some. what saturnine expression of mischief "that Miss Ringgan contemplates forsaking the agricultural line before a great while?"

"I have not given up my old habits, Sir," said Fleda, a good deal vexed.

"No I suppose not but Queechy air is not so well suited for them other skies will prove more genial," he said, she could not help thinking, pleased at her displeasure.

"What is the fault of Queechy air, Sir?" said Mr. Carleton, approaching them.

"Sir!" said the doctor, exceedingly taken aback, though the words had been spoken in the quietest manner possible "it a it has no fault, Sir that I am particularly aware of it is perfectly salubrious. Mrs. Plumfield, I will bid you good-day; I a I hope you will get well again."

"I hope not, Sir!" said aunt Miriam, in the same clear hearty tones which had answered him before.

The doctor took his departure, and made capital of his interview with Mr. Carleton; who, he affirmed, he could tell by what he had seen of him, was a very deciduous character, and not always conciliating in his manners.

Fleda waited with a little anxiety for what was to follow the doctor's leave-taking.

It was with a very softened eye that aunt Miriam looked at the two who were left, clasping Fleda's hand again; and it was with a very softened voice that she next spoke.

"Do you remember our last meeting, Sir?"

"I remember it well," he said.

"Fleda tells me you are a changed man since that time?"

He answered only by a slight and grave bow.

"Mr. Carleton," said the old lady "I am a dying woman and this child is the dearest thing in the world to me after my own and hardly after him. Will you pardon me will you bear with me, if, that I may die in peace, I say, Sir, what else it would not become me to say? and it is for her sake."

"Speak to me freely as you would to her," he said, with a look that gave her full permission.

Fleda had drawn close and hid her face in her aunt's neck. Aunt Miriam's hand moved fondly over her cheek and brow for a minute or two in silence; her eye resting there too.

"Mr. Carleton, this child is to belong to you how will you guide her?"

"By the gentlest paths," he said, with a smile.

A whispered remonstrance from Fleda to her aunt had no effect.

"Will her best interests be safe in your hands?"

"How shall I resolve you of that, Mrs. Plumfield?" he said, gravely.

"Will you help her to mind her mother's prayer, and keep herself unspotted from the world?"

"As I trust she will help me."

A rogue may answer questions, but an eye that has never known the shadow of double-dealing makes no doubtful discoveries of itself. Mrs. Plumfield read it, and gave it her very thorough respect.

"Mr. Carleton pardon me, Sir I do not doubt you but I remember hearing long ago that you were rich and great in the world it is dangerous for a Christian to be so can she keep in your grandeur the simplicity of heart and life she has had at Queechy?"

"May I remind you of your own words, my dear madam? By the blessing of God all things are possible. These things you speak of are not in themselves evil; if the mind be set on somewhat else, they are little beside a larger storehouse of material to work with an increased stewardship to account for."

"She has been taking care of others all her life," said aunt Miriam, tenderly; "it is time she was taken care of: and these feet are very unfit for rough paths; but I would rather she should go on struggling, as she has done, with difficulties, and live and die in poverty, than that the lustre of her heavenly inheritance should be tarnished even a little. I would, my darling."

"But the alternative is not so," said Mr. Carleton, with gentle grace, touching Fleda's hand, who he saw was a good deal disturbed. "Do not make her afraid of me, Mrs. Plumfield."

"I do not believe I need," said aunt Miriam, "and I am sure I could not but, Sir, you will forgive me?"

"No, Madam that is not possible."

"One cannot stand where I do," said the old lady, "without learning a little the comparative value of things; and I seek my child's good that is my excuse. I could not be satisfied to take her testimony."

"Take mine, Madam," said Mr. Carleton. "I have learned the comparative value of things too; and I will guard her highest interests as carefully as I will every other as earnestly as you can desire."

"I thank you, Sir," said the old lady, gratefully. "I am sure of it. I shall leave her in good hands. I wanted this assurance. And if ever there was a tender plant that was not fitted to grow on the rough side of the world I think this is one," said she, kissing earnestly the face that yet Fleda did not dare to lift up.

Mr. Carleton did not say what he thought. He presently took kind leave of the old lady, and went into the next room, where Fleda soon rejoined him, and they set off homewards.

Fleda was quietly crying all the way down the hill. At the foot of the hill, Mr. Carleton resolutely slackened his pace.

"I have one consolation," he said, "my dear Elfie you will have the less to leave for me."

She put her hand with a quick motion upon his, and roused herself.

"She is a beautiful rebuke to unbelief. But she is hardly to be mourned for, Elfie."

"Oh, I was not crying for aunt Miriam," said Fleda.

"For what then?" he said, gently.

"Myself."

"That needs explanation," he said, in the same tone. "Let me have it, Elfie."

"Oh I was thinking of several things," said Fleda, not exactly wishing to give the explanation.

"Too vague," said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "Trust me with a little more of your mind, Elfie."

Fleda glanced up at him, half smiling, and yet with filling eyes, and then, as usual, yielded to the winning power of the look that met her.

"I was thinking," she said, keeping her head carefully down, "of some of the things you and aunt Miriam were saying just now and how good for nothing I am."

"In what respect?" said Mr. Carleton, with praiseworthy gravity.

Fleda hesitated, and he pressed the matter no further; but, more unwilling to displease him than herself, she presently went on, with some difficulty; wording what she had to say with as much care as she could.

"I was thinking, how gratitude or not gratitude alone but how one can be full of the desire to please another a fellow-creature and find it constantly easy to do or bear anything for that purpose; and how slowly and coldly duty has to move alone in the direction where it should be the swiftest and warmest."

She knew he would take her words as simply as she said them; she was not disappointed. He was silent a minute, and then said gravely,

"Is this a late discovery, Elfie?"

"No only I was realizing it strongly just now."

"It is a complaint we may all make. The remedy is, not to love less what we know, but to know better that of which we are in ignorance. We will be helps, and not hindrances to each other, Elfie."

"You have said that before," said Fleda, still keeping her head down.

"What?"

"About my being a help to you!"

"It will not be the first time," said he, smiling; "nor the second. Your little hand first held up a glass to gather the scattered rays of truth that could not warm me, into a centre where they must burn."

"Very innocently," said Fleda, with a little unsteady feeling of voice.

"Very innocently!" said Mr. Carleton, smiling. "A veritable lens could hardly have been more unconscious of its work, or more pure of design."

"I do not think that was quite so, either, Mr. Carleton," said
Fleda.

"It was so, my dear Elfie, and your present speech is nothing against it. This power of example is always unconsciously wielded; the medium ceases to be clear so soon as it is made anything but as medium. The bits of truth you aimed at me wittingly would have been nothing, if they had not come through that medium."

"Then apparently one's prime efforts ought to be directed to one's self."

"One's first efforts, certainly Your silent example was the first thing that moved me."

"Silent example!" said Fleda, catching her breath a little. "Mine ought to be very good, for I can never do good in any other way."

"You used to talk pretty freely to me."

"It wasn't my fault, I am certain," said Fleda, half laughing. "Besides, I was sure of my ground. But, in general, I never can speak to people about what will do them any good."

"Yet, whatever be the power of silent example, there are often times when a word is of incalculable importance."

"I know it," said Fleda, earnestly; "I have felt it very often, and grieved that I could not say it, even at the very moment when I knew it was wanting."

"Is that right, Elfie?"

"No," said Fleda, with quick watering eyes; "it is not right at all; but it is constitutional with me. I never can talk to other people of what concerns my own thoughts and feelings."

"But this concerns other people's thoughts and feelings."

"Yes; but there is an implied revelation of my own."

"Do you expect to include me in the denomination of 'other people?' "

"I don't know," said Fleda, laughing.

"Do you wish it?"

Fleda looked down and up, and coloured, and said she didn't know.

"I will teach you," said he, smiling.

The rest of the day, by both, was given to Hugh.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"O what is life but a sum of love,
And death but to lose it all?
Weeds be for those that are left behind,
And not for those that fall!"
MILNES.

"Here's something come, Fleda," said Barby, walking into the sick-room one morning, a few days afterwards; "a great bag of something more than you can eat up in a fortnight; it's for Hugh."

"It's extraordinary that anybody should send me a great bag of anything eatable," said Hugh.

"Where did it come from?" said Fleda.

"Philetus fetched it he found it down to Mr. Sampion's, when he went with the sheep-skins."

"How do you know it's for me?" said Hugh.

" 'Cause it's written on, as plain as a pikestaff. I guess it's a mistake, though."

"Why?" said Fleda; "and what is it?"

"Oh, I don't much think 'twas meant for him," said Barby.
"It's oysters."

"Oysters!"

"Yes come out and look at 'em you never see such fine fellows. I've heerd say," said Barby, abstractedly, as Fleda followed her out, and she displayed to view some magnificent Ostraceans "I've heerd say that an English shilling was worth two American ones; but I never understood it rightly, till now."

To all intents and purposes those were English oysters, and worth twice as much as any others, Fleda secretly confessed.

That evening, up in the sick room it was quite evening, and all the others of the family were taking rest, or keeping Mr. Rossitur company down stairs Fleda was carefully roasting some of the same oysters for Hugh's supper. She had spread out a glowing bed of coals on the hearth, and there lay four or five of the big bivalves, snapping and sputtering in approbation of their quarters, in a most comfortable manner; and Fleda, standing before the fire, tended them with a double kind of pleasure. From one friend, and for another, those were most odorous oysters. Hugh sat watching them and her, the same in happy simplicity that he had been at eleven years old.

"How pleasant those oysters smell!" said he. "Fleda, they remind me so of the time when you and I used to roast oysters in Mrs. Renney's room for lunch do you recollect? and sometimes in the evening, when everybody was gone out, you know; and what an airing we used to have to give the dining- room afterwards. How we used to enjoy them, Fleda you and I, all alone."

"Yes," said Fleda, in a tone of doubtful enjoyment. She was shielding her face with a paper, and making self-sacrificing efforts to persuade a large oyster-shell to stand so on the coals as to keep the juice.

"Don't," said Hugh; "I would rather the oysters should burn than you. Mr. Carleton wouldn't thank me for letting you do so."

"Never mind," said Fleda, arranging the oysters to her satisfaction; "he isn't here to see. Now, Hugh, my dear, these are ready as soon as I am."

"I am ready," said Hugh. "How long it is since we had a roast oyster, Fleda!"

"They look good, don't they?"

A little stand was brought up between them, with the bread- and-butter and the cups; and Fleda opened oysters and prepared tea for Hugh, with her nicest, gentlest, busiest of hands making every bit to be twice as sweet, for her sympathizing eyes and loving smile and pleasant word commenting. She shared the meal with him, but her own part was as slender as his, and much less thought of. His enjoyment was what she enjoyed, though it was with a sad twinge of alloy, which changed her face whenever it was where he could not see it: when turned upon him, it was only bright and affectionate, and sometimes a little too tender; but Fleda was too good a nurse to let that often appear.

"Mr. Carleton did not bargain for your opening his oysters,
Fleda. How kind it was of him to send them!"

"Yes."

"How long will he be gone, Fleda?"

"I don't know he didn't say. I don't believe many days."

Hugh was silent a little, while she was putting away the stand and the oyster-shells. Then she came and sat down by him.

"You have burnt yourself over those things," said he, sorrowfully; "you shouldn't have done it. It is not right."

"Dear Hugh," said Fleda, lightly laying her head on his shoulder. "I like to burn myself for you."

"That's just the way you have been doing all your life."

"Hush!" she said, softly.

"It is true for me and for everybody else. It is time you were taken better care of, dear Fleda."

"Don't, dear Hugh!"

"I am right, though," said he. "You are pale and worn now with waiting upon me, and thinking of me. It is time you were gone. But I think it is well I am going too, for what should I do in the world without you, Fleda?"

Fleda was crying now, intensely, though quietly; but Hugh went on with feeling, as calm as it was deep.

"What should I have done all these years or any of us? How you have tired yourself for everybody in the garden and in the kitchen, and with Earl Douglass how we could let you, I don't know, but I believe we could not help it."

Fleda put her hand upon his mouth. But he took it away and went on

"How often I have seen you sleeping all the evening on the sofa with a pale face, tired out, dear Fleda," said he, kissing her cheek; "I am glad there's to be an end put to it. And all the day you went about with such a bright face, that it made mother and me happy to look at you; and I knew then, many a time, it was for our sakes "

"Why do you cry so, Fleda? I like to think of it, and to talk of it, now that I know you won't do so any more. I know the whole truth, and it went to the bottom of my heart; but I could do nothing but love you I did that! Don't cry so, Fleda! you ought not. You have been the sunshine of the house. My spirit never was so strong as yours; I should have been borne to the ground, I know, in all these years, if it had not been for you; and mother you have been her life."

"You have been tired too," Fleda whispered.

"Yes, at the saw-mill. And then you would come up there through the sun to look at me, and your smile would make me forget everything sorrowful for the rest of the day except that I couldn't help you."

"Oh, you did you did you helped me always, Hugh!"

"Not much. I couldn't help you when you were sewing for me and father till your fingers and eyes were aching, and you never would own that you were anything but 'a little' tired it made my heart ache. Oh, I knew it all, dear Fleda. I am very, very glad that you will have somebody to take care of you now, that will not let you burn four fingers for him or anybody else. It makes me happy!"

"You make me very unhappy, dear Hugh."

"I don't mean it," said Hugh, tenderly. "But I don't believe there is anybody else in the world that I could be so satisfied to leave you with."

Fleda made no answer to that. She sat up and tried to recover herself.

"I hope he will come back in time," said Hugh, settling himself back in the easy-chair with a weary look, and closing his eyes.

"In time for what!"

"To see me again."

"My dear Hugh! he will, to be sure, I hope."

"He must make haste," said Hugh. "But I want to see him again very much, Fleda."

"For anything in particular?"

"No only because I love him. I want to see him once more."

Hugh slumbered; and Fleda, by his side, wept tears of mixed feeling till she was tired.

Hugh was right. But nobody else knew it, and his brother was not sent for.

It was about a week after this, when one night a horse and waggon came up to the back of the house from the road, the gentleman who had been driving leading the horse. It was late, long past Mr. Skillcorn's usual hour of retiring, but some errand of business had kept him abroad, and he stood there looking on. The stars gave light enough.

"Can you fasten my horse where he may stand a little while,
Sir, without taking him out?"

"I guess I can," replied Philetus, with reasonable confidence, "if there's a rope's end some place."

And forthwith he went back into the house to seek it; the gentleman patiently holding his horse meanwhile till he came out.

"How is Mr. Hugh to-night?"

"Well he aint just so smart, they say," responded Philetus, insinuating the rope's end as awkwardly as possible among the horse's head-gear. "I believe he's dying."

Instead of going round now to the front of the house, Mr. Carleton knocked gently at the kitchen door, and asked the question anew of Barby.

"He's come in, Sir, if you please," she said, opening wide the door for him to enter. "I'll tell 'em you're here."

"Do not disturb any one for me," said he.

"I won't disturb 'em!" said Barby, in a tone a little, though unconsciously, significant.

Mr. Carleton neglected the chair she had placed for him, and remained standing by the mantel-piece, thinking of the scenes of his early introduction to that kitchen. It wore the same look it had done then; under Barby's rule it was precisely the same thing it had been under Cynthia's. The passing years seemed a dream, and the passing generations of men a vanity, before the old house, more abiding than they. He stood thinking of the people he had seen gathered by that fire- place, and the little household fairy whose childish ministrations had give such a beauty to the scene when a very light step crossed the painted floor, and she was there again before him. She did not speak a word; she stood still a moment trying for words, and then put her hand upon Mr. Carleton's arm, and gently drew him out of the room with her.

The family were all gathered in the room to which she brought him. Mr. Rossitur, as soon as he saw Mr. Carleton come in, shrunk back where he could be a little shielded by the bed- post. Marion's face was hid on the foot of the bed. Mrs. Rossitur did not move. Leaving Mr. Carleton on the near side of the bed, Fleda went round to the place she seemed to have occupied before at Hugh's right hand; and they were all still, for he was in a little doze, lying with his eyes closed, and the face as gently and placidly sweet as it had been in his boyhood. Perhaps Mr. Rossitur looked at it: but no other did just then, except Mr. Carleton. His eye rested nowhere else. The breathing of an infant could not be more gentle; the face of an angel not more peacefully at rest. "So He giveth His beloved sleep," thought he gentleman, as he gazed on the brow from which all care, if care there had ever been, seemed to have taken flight.

Not yet not quite yet; for Hugh suddenly opened his eyes, and without seeing anybody else, said

"Father."

Mr. Rossitur left the bed-post, and came close to where Fleda was standing, and leaning forward, touched his son's head, but did not speak.

"Father," said Hugh, in a voice so gentle that it seemed as if strength must be failing, "what will you do when you come to lie here?"

Mr. Rossitur put his hands to his face.

"Father I must speak now if I never did before once I must speak to you what will you do when you come to lie where I do? what will you trust to?"

The person addressed was as motionless as a statue. Hugh did not move his eyes from him.

"Father, I will be a living warning and example to you, for know that I shall live in your memory you shall remember what I say to you that Jesus Christ is a dear friend to those that trust in him, and if he is not yours it will be because you will not let him. You shall remember my testimony, that he can make death sweeter than life in his presence is fulness of joy at his right hand there are pleasures for evermore. He is better, he is more to me, even than you all, and he will be to you a better friend than the poor child you are losing, though you do not know it now. It is he that has made my life in this world happy only he and I have nothing to look to but him in the world I am going to. But what will you do in the hour of death, as I am, if he isn't your friend, father?"

Mr. Rossitur's frame swayed like a tree that one sees shaken by a distant wind, but he said nothing.

"Will you remember me happily, father, if you come to die without having done as I begged you? Will you think of me in heaven, and not try to come there too? Father, will you be a Christian? will you not? for my sake for little Hugh's sake, as you used to call him? Father."

Mr. Rossitur knelt down and hid his face in the coverings, but he did not utter a word.

Hugh's eye dwelt on him for a moment with unspeakable expression, and his lip trembled. He said no more he closed his eyes, and, for a little time, there was nothing to be heard but the sobs, which could not be restrained, from all but the two gentlemen. It probably oppressed Hugh, for, after a while, he said, with a weary sigh, and without opening his eyes

"I wish somebody would sing."

Nobody answered at first.

"Sing what, dear Hugh?" said Fleda, putting aside her tears, and leaning her face towards him.

"Something that speaks of my want," said Hugh.

"What do you want, dear Hugh?"

"Only Jesus Christ," he said, with a half smile.

But they were silent as death. Fleda's face was in her hands, and her utmost efforts after self-control wrought nothing but tears. The stillness had lasted a little while, when, very softly and sweetly, the notes of a hymn floated to their ears, and though they floated on and filled the room, the voice was so nicely modulated, that its waves of sweetness broke gently upon the nearest ear.

"Jesus, the sinner's friend, to Thee,
Lost and undone, for aid I flee;
Weary of earth, myself, and sin,
Open thine arms and take me in.

"Pity and save my sin-sick soul
'Tis thou alone canst make me whole;
Dark, till in me thine image shine,
And lost I am, till thou art mine.

"At length I own it cannot be,
That I should fit myself for thee,
Here now to thee I all resign
Thine is the work, and only thine.

"What shall I say thy grace to move?
Lord, I am sin, but thou art love!
I give up every plea beside
Lord, I am lost but thou hast died!"

They were still again after the voice had ceased almost perfectly still though tears might be pouring, as indeed they were, from every eye, there was no break to the silence, other than a half-caught sob, now and then, from a kneeling figure, whose head was in Marion's lap.

"Who was that?" said Hugh, when the singer had been silent a minute.

Nobody answered immediately, and then Mr. Carleton, bending over him, said

"Don't you know me, dear Hugh?"

"Is it Mr. Carleton?"

Hugh looked pleased, and clasped both of his hands upon Guy's, which he laid upon his breast. For a second he closed his eyes and was silent.

"Was it you sang?"

"Yes."

"You never sang for me before," he remarked.

He was silent again.

"Are you going to take Fleda away?"

"By and by," said Mr. Carleton, gently.

"Will you take good care of her?"

Mr. Carleton hesitated, and then said, so low that it could reach but one other person's ear

"What hand and life can."

"I know it," said Hugh. "I am very glad you will have her. You will not let her tire herself any more."

Whatever became of Fleda's tears, she had driven them away, and leaning forward, she touched her cheek to his, saying, with a clearness and sweetness of voice that only intensity of feeling could have given her at the moment

"I am not tired, dear Hugh."

Hugh clasped one arm round her neck and kissed her again and again, seeming unable to say anything to her in any other way; still keeping his hold of Mr. Carleton's hand.

"I give all my part of her to you," he said, at length. "Mr.
Carleton, I shall see both of you in heaven?"

"I hope so," was the answer, in those very calm and clear tones that have a singular effect in quieting emotion, while they indicate anything but the want of it.

"I am the best off of you all," Hugh said.

He lay still for awhile with shut eyes. Fleda had withdrawn herself from his arms and stood at his side, with a bowed head, but perfectly quiet. He still held Mr. Carleton's hand, as something he did not want to part with.

"Fleda," said he, "who is that crying? Mother come here."

Mr. Carleton gave place to her. Hugh pulled her down to him till her face lay upon his, and folded both his arms around her.

"Mother," he said, softly, "will you meet me in heaven? say yes."

"How can I, dear Hugh?"

"You can, dear mother," said he, kissing her with exceeding tenderness of expression "my Saviour will be yours and take you there. Say you will give yourself to Christ dear mother! sweet mother! promise me I shall see you again!"

Mrs. Rossitur's weeping it was difficult to hear. But Hugh, hardly shedding a tear, still kissed her, repeating, "Promise me, dear mother promise me that you will;" till Mrs. Rossitur, in an agony, sobbed out the word he wanted, and Hugh hid his face then in her neck.

Mr. Carleton left the room and went down stairs. He found the sitting-room desolate, untenanted and cold for hours; and he went again into the kitchen. Barby was there for some time, and then she left him alone.

He had passed a long while in thinking, and walking up and down, and he was standing musing by the fire, when Fleda again came in. She came in silently to his side, and putting her arm within his, laid her face upon it with a simplicity of trust and reliance that went to his heart; and she wept there for a long hour They hardly changed their position in all that time; and her tears flowed silently, though incessantly, the only tokens of his part being such a gentle caressing, smoothing of her hair, or putting it from her brow as he had used when she was a child. The bearing of her hand and head upon his arm, in time showed her increasingly weary. Nothing showed him so.

"Elfie my dear Elfie," he said at last, very tenderly, in the same way that he would have spoken nine years before "Hugh gave his part of you to me I must take care of it."

Fleda tried to rouse herself immediately.

"This is poor entertainment for you, Mr. Carleton," she said, raising her head, and wiping away the tears from her face.

"You are mistaken," he said, gently. "You never gave me such pleasure but twice before, Elfie?"

Fleda's head went down again instantly, and this time there was something almost caressing in the motion.

"Next to the happiness of having friends on earth," he said soothingly, "is the happiness of having friends in heaven. Don't weep any more to-night, my dear Elfie."

"He told me to thank you," said Fleda. But stopping short and clasping with convulsive energy the arm she held, she shed more violent tears than she had done that night before. The most gentle soothing, the most tender reproof, availed at last to quiet her; and she stood clinging to his arm still, and looking down into the fire.

"I did not think it would be so soon," she said.

"It was not soon to him, Elfie."

"He told me to thank you for singing. How little while it seems since we were children together how little while since before that when I was a little child here how different!"

"No, the very same," said he, touching his lips to her forehead "you are the very same child you were then; but it is time you were my child, for I see you would make yourself ill. No," said he, softly, taking the hand Fleda raised to her face "no more to-night tell me how early I may see you in the morning for, Elfie, I must leave you after breakfast."

Fleda looked up inquiringly.

"My mother has brought news that determines me to return to
England immediately."

"To England!"

"I have been too long from home I am wanted there."

Fleda looked down again, and did her best not to show what she felt.

"I do not know how to leave you and now but I must. There are disturbances among the people, and my own are infected. I must be there without delay."

"Political disturbances?" said Fleda.

"Somewhat of that nature but partly local. How early may I come to you?"

"But you are not going away to-night? It is very late."

"That is nothing my horse is here."

Fleda would have begged in vain, if Barby had not come in and added her word, to the effect that it would be a mess of work to look for lodgings at that time of night, and that she had made the west room ready for Mr. Carleton. She rejected with great sincerity any claim to the thanks with which Fleda as well as Mr. Carleton repaid her; "there wa'n't no trouble about it," she said. Mr. Carleton, however, found his room prepared for him with all the care that Barby's utmost ideas of refinement and exactness could suggest.

It was still very early the next morning when he left it and came into the sitting-room, but he was not the first there. The firelight glimmered on the silver and china of the breakfast table, all set; everything was in absolute order, from the fire to the two cups and saucers which were alone on the board. A still silent figure was standing by one of the windows looking out. Not crying; but that Mr. Carleton knew from the unmistakeable lines of the face was only because tears were waiting another time; quiet now, it would not be by and by. He came and stood at the window with her.

"Do you know," he said, after a little, "that Mr. Rossitur purposes to leave Queechy?"

"Does he?" said Fleda, rather starting, but she added not another word, simply because she felt she could not safely.

"He has accepted, I believe, a consulship at Jamaica."

"Jamaica!" said Fleda. "I have heard him speak of the West Indies I am not surprised I knew it was likely he would not stay here."

How tightly her fingers that were free grasped the edge of the window-frame. Mr. Carleton saw it and softly removed them into his own keeping.

"He may go before I can be here again. But I shall leave my mother to take care of you, Elfie."

"Thank you," said Fleda, faintly. "You are very kind "

"Kind to myself," he said, smiling. "I am only taking care of my own. I need not say that you will see me again as early as my duty can make it possible; but I may be detained, and your friends may be gone Elfie give me the right to send if I cannot come for you. Let me leave my wife in my mother's care."

Fleda looked down, and coloured, and hesitated; but the expression in her face was not that of doubt.

"Am I asking too much?" he said, gently.

"No, Sir," said Fleda "and but "

"What is in the way?"

But it seemed impossible for Fleda to tell him.

"May I not know?" he said, gently putting away the hair from Fleda's face, which looked distressed. "Is it only your feeling?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda "at least not the feeling you think it is but I could not do it without giving great pain."

Mr. Carleton was silent.

"Not to anybody you know, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, suddenly fearing a wrong interpretation to her words "I don't mean that I mean somebody else the person the only person you could apply to" she said, covering her face in utter confusion.

"Do I understand you?" said he, smiling. "Has this gentleman any reason to dislike the sight of me?"

"No, Sir," said Fleda "but he thinks he has."

"That only I meant," said he. "You are quite right, my dear
Elfie I, of all men, ought to understand that."

The subject was dropped; and in a few minutes his gentle skill had wellnigh made Fleda forget what they had been talking about. Himself and his wishes seemed to be put quite out of his own view, and out of hers as far as possible, except that the very fact made Fleda recognise, with unspeakable gratitude and admiration, the kindness and grace that were always exerted for her pleasure. If her goodwill could have been put into the cups of coffee she poured out for him, he might have gone, in the strength of them, all the way to England. There was strength of another kind to be gained from her face of quiet sorrow and quiet self-command, which were her very childhood's own.

"You will see me at the earliest possible moment," he said, when at last taking leave. "I hope to be free in a short time: but it may not be. Elfie, if I should be detained longer than I hope if I should not be able to return in a reasonable time will you let my mother bring you out? if I cannot come to you, will you come to me?"

Fleda coloured a good deal, and said, scarce intelligibly, that she hoped he would be able to come. He did not press the matter. He parted from her, and was leaving the room. Fleda suddenly sprang after him, before he had reached the door, and laid her hand on his arm.

"I did not answer your question, Mr. Carleton," she said, with cheeks that were dyed now "I will do whatever you please whatever you think best."

His thanks were most gratefully, though silently, spoken, and he went away.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Daughter, they seem to say,
Peace to thy heart!
We too, yes, daughter,
Have been as thou art.
Hope-lifted, doubt-depress'd,
Seeing in part
Tried, troubled, tempted
Sustain'd as thou art."
UNKNOWN.

Mr. Rossitur was disposed for no further delay now in leaving Queechy. The office at Jamaica, which Mr. Carleton and Dr. Gregory had secured for him, was immediately accepted, and every arrangement pressed to hasten his going. On every account, he was impatient to be out of America, and especially since his son's death. Marion was of his mind. Mrs. Rossitur had more of a home feeling, even for the place where home had not been to her as happy as it might.

They were sad weeks of bustle and weariness that followed Hugh's death less sad, perhaps, for the weariness and the bustle. There was little time for musing no time for lingering regrets. If thought and feeling played their Aeolian measures on Fleda's harpstrings, they were listened to only by snatches, and she rarely sat down and cried to them.

A very kind note had been received from Mrs. Carleton.

April gave place to May. One afternoon, Fleda had taken an hour or two to go and look at some of the old places on the farm that she loved, and that were not too far to reach. A last look she guessed it might be, for it was weeks since she had had a spare afternoon, and another she might not be able to find. It was a doubtful pleasure she sought too, but she must have it.

She visited the long meadow and the height that stretched along it, and even went so far as the extremity of the valley, at the foot of the twenty-acre lot, and then stood still to gather up the ends of memory. There she had gone chestnutting with Mr. Ringgan thither she had guided Mr. Carleton and her cousin Rossitur that day when they were going after woodcock there she had directed and overseen Earl Douglass's huge crop of corn. How many pieces of her life were connected with it! She stood for a little while looking at the old chestnut trees, looking and thinking, and turned away soberly with the recollection, "The world passeth away, but the word of our God shall stand for ever." And though there was one thought that was a continual well of happiness in the depth of Fleda's heart, her mind passed it now, and echoed with great joy the countersign of Abraham's privilege, "Thou art my portion, O Lord!" And in that assurance every past and every hoped-for good was sweet with added sweetness. She walked home without thinking much of the long meadow.

It was a chill spring afternoon, and Fleda was in her old trim the black cloak, the white shawl over it, and the hood of grey silk. And in that trim she walked into the sitting-room.

A lady was there, in a travelling dress, a stranger. Fleda's eye took in her outline and feature one moment with a kind of bewilderment, the next with perfect intelligence. If the lady had been in any doubt, Fleda's cheeks alone would have announced her identity. But she came forward without hesitation after the first moment, pulling off her hood, and stood before her visitor, blushing, in a way that perhaps Mrs. Carleton looked at as a novelty in her world. Fleda did not know how she looked at it, but she had, nevertheless, an instinctive feeling, even at the moment, that the lady wondered how her son should have fancied particularly anything that went about under such a hood.

Whatever Mrs. Carleton thought, her son's fancies, she knew, were unmanageable; and she had far too much good breeding to let her thoughts be known unless to one of those curious spirit thermometers that can tell a variation of temperature through every sort of medium. There might have been the slightest want of forwardness to do it, but she embraced Fleda with great cordiality.

"This is for the old time not for the new, dear Fleda," she said. "Do you remember me?"

"Perfectly! very well," said Fleda, giving Mrs. Carleton for a moment a glimpse of her eyes. "I do not easily forget."

"Your look promises me an advantage from that, which I do not deserve, but which I may as well use as another. I want all I can have, Fleda."

There was a half look at the speaker that seemed to deny the truth of that, but Fleda did not otherwise answer. She begged her visitor to sit down, and throwing off the white shawl and black cloak, took tongs in hand, and began to mend the fire. Mrs. Carleton sat considering a moment the figure of the fire- maker, not much regardful of the skill she was bringing to bear upon the sticks of wood.

Fleda turned from the fire to remove her visitor's bonnet and wrappings, but the former was all Mrs. Carleton would give her. She threw off shawl and tippet on the nearest chair.

It was the same Mrs. Carleton of old Fleda saw while this was doing unaltered almost entirely. The fine figure and bearing were the same; time had made no difference; even the face had paid little tribute to the years that had passed by it; and the hair held its own without a change. Bodily and mentally she was the same. Apparently she was thinking the like of Fleda.

"I remember you very well," she said, with kindly accent, when Fleda sat down by her. "I have never forgotten you. A dear little creature you were. I always knew that."

Fleda hoped privately the lady would see no occasion to change her mind; but for the present she was bankrupt in words.

"I was in the same room this morning at Montepoole where we used to dine, and it brought back the whole thing to me the time when you were sick there with us. I could think of nothing else. But I don't think I was your favourite, Fleda."

Such a rush of blood again answered her as moved Mrs. Carleton, in common kindness, to speak of common things. She entered into a long story of her journey of her passage from England of the steamer that brought her of her stay in New York all which Fleda heard very indifferently well. She was more distinctly conscious of the handsome travelling dress, which seemed all the while to look as its wearer had done, with some want of affinity upon the little grey hood which lay on the chair in the corner. Still she listened and responded as became her, though, for the most part, with eyes that did not venture from home. The little hood itself could never have kept its place with less presumption, nor with less flutter of self-distrust.

Mrs. Carleton came at last to a general account of the circumstances that had determined Guy to return home so suddenly, where she was more interesting. She hoped he would not be detained, but it was impossible to tell. It was just as it might happen.

"Are you acquainted with the commission I have been charged with?" she said, when her narrations had at last lapsed into silence, and Fleda's eyes had returned to the ground.

"I suppose so, Ma'am, " said Fleda, with a little smile.

"It is a very pleasant charge" said Mrs. Carleton, softly kissing her cheek. Something in the face itself must have called forth that kiss, for this time there were no requisitions of politeness.

"Do you recognise my commission, Fleda?"

Fleda did not answer. Mrs. Carleton sat a few minutes thoughtfully drawing back the curls from her forehead, Mr. Carleton's very gesture, but not by any means with his fingers; and musing, perhaps, on the possibility of a hood's having very little to do with what it covered.

"Do you know," she said, "I have felt as if I were nearer to
Guy since I have seen you."

The quick smile and colour that answered this, both very bright, wrought in Mrs. Carleton an instant recollection that her son was very apt to be right in his judgments, and that probably the present case might prove him so. The hand which had played with Fleda's hair was put round her waist, very affectionately, and Mrs. Carleton drew near her.

"I am sure we shall love each other, Fleda," she said.

It was said like Fleda, not like Mrs. Carleton, and answered as simply. Fleda had gained her place. Her head was in Mrs. Carleton's neck, and welcomed there.

"At least I am sure I shall love you," said the lady, kissing her; "and I don't despair on my own account for somebody else's sake."

"No," said Fleda, but she was not fluent to-day. She sat up and repeated, "I have not forgotten old times either, Mrs. Carleton."

"I don't want to think of the old time I want to think of the new," she seemed to have a great fancy for stroking back those curls of hair; "I want to tell you how happy I am, dear Fleda."

Fleda did not say whether she was happy or unhappy, and her look might have been taken for dubious. She kept her eyes on the ground, while Mrs. Carleton drew the hair off from her flushing cheeks, and considered the face laid bare to her view; and thought it was a fair face a very presentable face delicate and lovely a face that she would have no reason to be ashamed of, even by her son's side. Her speech was not precisely to that effect.

"You know now why I have come upon you at such a time. I need not ask pardon. I felt that I should be hardly discharging my commission if I did not see you till you arrived in New York. My wishes I could have made to wait, but not my trust. So I came."

"I am very glad you did."

She could fain have persuaded the lady to disregard circumstances, and stay with her, at least till the next day, but Mrs. Carleton was unpersuadable. She would return immediately to Montepoole.

"And how long shall you be here now?" she said.

"A few days it will not be more than a week."

"Do you know how soon Mr. Rossitur intends to sail for
Jamaica?"

"As soon as possible he will make his stay in New York very short not more than a fortnight, perhaps; as short as he can."

"And then, my dear Fleda, I am to have the charge of you for a little while am I not?"

Fleda hesitated, and began to say, "Thank you," but it was finished with a burst of very hearty tears.

Mrs. Carleton knew immediately the tender spot she had touched. She put her arms about Fleda, and caressed her as gently as her own mother might have done.

"Forgive me, dear Fleda! I forgot that so much that is sad to you must come before what is so much pleasure to me. Look up and tell me that you forgive me."

Fleda soon looked up, but she looked very sorrowful, and said nothing. Mrs. Carleton watched her face for a little while, really pained.

"Have you heard from Guy since he went away?" she whispered.

"No, Ma'am."

"I have."

And therewith she put into Fleda's hand a letter not Mrs. Carleton's letter, as Fleda's first thought was. It had her own name and the seal was unbroken. But it moved Mrs. Carleton's wonder to see Fleda cry again, and longer than before. She did not understand it. She tried soothing, but she ventured no attempt at consoling, for she did not know what was the matter.

"You will let me go now, I know," she said, smilingly, when Fleda was again recovered, and standing before the fire with a face not so sorrowful, Mrs. Carleton saw. "But I must say something I shall not hurt you again."

"O no, you did not hurt me at all it was not what you said."

"You will come to me, dear Fleda? I feel that I want you very much."

"Thank you but there is my uncle Orrin, Mrs. Carleton Dr.
Gregory."

"Dr. Gregory? He is just on the eve of sailing for Europe; I thought you knew it."

"On the eve? so soon?"

"Very soon, he told me. Dear Fleda, shall I remind you of my commission, and who gave it to me?"

Fleda hesitated still; at least, she stood looking into the fire, and did not answer.

"You do not own his authority yet," Mrs. Carleton went on; "but I am sure his wishes do not weigh for nothing with you, and I can plead them."

Probably it was a source of some gratification to Mrs. Carleton to see those deep spots on Fleda's cheeks. They were a silent tribute to an invisible presence that flattered the lady's affection or her pride.

"What do you say, dear Fleda to him and to me?" she said, smiling and kissing her.

"I will come, Mrs. Carleton."

The lady was quite satisfied, and departed on the instant, having got, she said, all she wanted; and Fleda cried till her eyes were sore.

The days were few that remained to them in their old home; not more than a week, as Fleda had said. It was the first week in May.

The evening before they were to leave Queechy, Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went together to pay their farewell visit to Hugh's grave. It was some distance off. They walked there arm in arm without a word by the way.

The little country grave-yard lay alone on a hill-side, a good way from any house, and out of sight even of any but a very distant one. A sober and quiet place, no tokens of busy life immediately near, the fields around it being used for pasturing sheep, except an instance or two of winter grain now nearing its maturity. A by-road not much travelled led to the grave-yard, and led off from it over the broken country, following the ups and down of the ground to a long distance away, without a moving thing upon it in sight near or far. No sound of stirring and active humanity. Nothing to touch the perfect repose. But every lesson of the place could be heard more distinctly amid that silence of all other voices. Except, indeed, Nature's voice; that was not silent: and neither did it jar with the other. The very light of the evening fell more tenderly upon the old grey stones and the thick grass in that place.

Fleda and Mrs. Rossitur went softly to one spot where the grass was not grown, and where the bright white marble caught the eye and spoke of grief, fresh too. O that that were grey and moss-grown like the others! The mother placed herself where the staring black letters of Hugh's name could not remind her so harshly that it no more belonged to the living; and, sitting down on the ground, hid her face, to struggle through the parting agony once more, with added bitterness.

Fleda stood a while sharing it, for with her too it was the last time in all likelihood. If she had been alone, her grief might have witnessed itself bitterly and uncontrolled: but the selfish relief was foregone, for the sake of another, that it might be in her power by and by to minister to a heart yet sorer and weaker than hers. The tears that fell so quietly and so fast upon the foot of Hugh's grave were all the deeper drawn and richer fraught.

A while she stood there; and then passed round to a group a little way off, that had as dear and strong claims upon her love and memory. These were not fresh, not very; oblivion had not come there yet only Time's softening hand. Was it softening? for Fleda's head was bent down further here, and tears rained faster. It was hard to leave these! The cherished names that from early years had lived in her child's heart from this their last earthly abiding-place she was to part company. Her mother's and her father's graves were there, side by side; and never had Fleda's heart so clung to the old grey stones, never had the faded lettering seemed so dear of the dear names and of the words of faith and hope that were their dying or living testimony. And next to them was her grandfather's resting-place; and with that sunshiny green mound came a throng of strangely tender and sweet associations, more even than with the other two. His gentle, venerable, dignified figure rose before her, and her heart yearned towards it. In imagination Fleda pressed again to her breast the withered hand that had led her childhood so kindly; and overcome here for a little, she kneeled down upon the sod, and bent her head till the long grass almost touched it, in an agony of human sorrow. Could she leave them? and for ever in this world? and be content to see on more these dear memorials till others like them should be raised for herself, far away? But then stole in consolations not human, nor of man's devising the words that were written upon her mother's tombstone

"Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."

It was like the march of angels' feet over the turf. And her mother had been a meek child of faith, and her father and grandfather, though strong men, had bowed like little children to the same rule. Fleda's head bent lower yet, and she wept, even aloud, but it was one-half in pure thankfulness and a joy that the world knows nothing of. Doubtless they and she were one; doubtless, though the grass now covered their graves, the heavenly bond in which they were held would bring them together again in light, to a new and more beautiful life that should know no severing. Asleep in Jesus; and even as he had risen so should they they and others that she loved all whom she loved best. She could leave their graves; and with an unspeakable look of thanks to Him who had brought life and immortality to light, she did; but not till she had there once again remembered her mother's prayer, and her aunt Miriam's words, and prayed that rather anything might happen to her than that prosperity and the world's favour should draw her from the simplicity and humility of a life above the world. Rather than not meet them in joy at the last, oh, let her want what she most wished for in this world!

If riches have their poisonous snares, Fleda carried away from this place a strong antidote. With a spirit strangely simple, pure, and calm, she went back to her aunt.

Poor Mrs. Rossitur was not quieted, but at Fleda's touch and voice, gentle and loving as the spirit of love and gentleness could make them, she tried to rouse herself; lifted up her weary head, and clasped her arms about her niece. The manner of it went to Fleda's heart, for there was in it both a looking to her for support and a clinging to her as another dear thing she was about to lose. Fleda could not speak for the heart-ache.

"It is harder to leave this place than all the rest," Mrs.
Rossitur murmured, after some little time had passed on.

"He is not here," said Fleda's soothing voice. It set her aunt to crying again.

"No I know it," she said.

"We shall see him again. Think of that."

"You will," said Mrs. Rossitur, very sadly.

"And so will you, dear aunt Lucy dear aunt Lucy you promised him?"

"Yes" sobbed Mrs. Rossitur "I promised him but I am such a poor creature."

"So poor that Jesus cannot save you? or will not? No, dear aunt Lucy you do not think that; only trust him you do trust him now, do you not?"

A fresh gush of tears came with the answer, but it was in the affirmative; and, after a few minutes, Mrs. Rossitur grew more quiet.

"I wish something were done to this," she said, looking at the fresh earth beside her; "if we could have planted something "

"I have thought of it a thousand times," said Fleda, sighing; "I would have done it long ago if I could have got here; but it doesn't matter, aunt Lucy. I wish I could have done it."

"You?" said Mrs. Rossitur; "my poor child! you have been wearing yourself out working for me. I never was worth anything!" she said, hiding her face again.

"When you have been the dearest and best mother to me? Now that is not right, aunt Lucy look up and kiss me."

The pleading sweet tone of voice was not to be resisted. Mrs. Rossitur looked up and kissed her earnestly enough, but with unabated self-reproach.

"I don't deserve to kiss you, for I have let you try yourself beyond your strength. How you look! Oh, how you look!"

"Never mind how I look," said Fleda, bringing her face so close that her aunt could not see it. "You helped me all you could, aunt Lucy don't talk so and I shall look well enough by and by, I am not so very tired."

"You always were so!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur, clasping her in her arms again: "and now I am going to lose you, too. My dear Fleda! that gives me more pleasure than anything else in the world!"

But it was a pleasure well cried over.

"We shall all meet again, I hope I will hope," said Mrs.
Rossitur, meekly, when Fleda had risen from her arms.

"Dear aunty! but before that in England you will come to see me. Uncle Rolf will bring you."

Even then, Fleda could not say even that without the blood mounting to her face. Mrs. Rossitur shook her head, and sighed; but smiled a little, too, as if that delightful chink of possibility let some light in.

"I shouldn't like to see Mr. Carleton now," she said, "for I could not look him in the face; and I am afraid he wouldn't want to look in mine, he would be so angry with me."

The sun was sinking low on that fair May afternoon, and they had two miles to walk to get home. Slowly and lingeringly they moved away.

The talk with her aunt had shaken Fleda's calmness, and she could have cried now with all her heart; but she constrained herself. They stopped a moment at the fence, to look the last before turning their backs upon the place. They lingered, and still Mrs. Rossitur did not move, and Fleda could not take away her eyes.

It was that prettiest time of nature, which, while it shows indeed the shade side of everything, makes it the occasion of a fair contrast. The grave-stones cast long shadows over the ground, foretokens of night where another night was resting already; the longest stretched away from the head of Hugh's grave. But the rays of the setting sun, softly touching the grass and the face of the white tombstone, seemed to say "Thy brother shall rise again!" Light upon the grave! The promise kissing the record of death! It was impossible to look in calmness. Fleda bowed her head upon the paling, and cried with a straitened heart, for grief and gratitude together.

Mrs. Rossitur had not moved when Fleda looked up again. The sun was yet lower the sunbeams, more slant, touched not only that bright white stone they passed on beyond, and carried the promise to those other grey ones, a little further off; that she had left yes, for the last time; and Fleda's thoughts went forward swiftly to the time of the promise "Then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then, as she looked, the sunbeams might have been a choir of angels in light, singing, ever so softly, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men."

With a full heart Fleda clasped her aunt's arm, and they went gently down the lane without saying one word to each other, till they had left the grave-yard far behind them and were in the high road again.

Fleda internally thanked Mr. Carleton for what he had said to her on a former occasion, for the thought of his words had given her courage, or strength, to go beyond her usual reserve in speaking to her aunt; and she thought her words had done good.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Use your pleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come,
let not my letter."
MERCHANT OF VENICE.

On the way home, Mrs. Rossitur and Fleda went a trifle out of their road to say good-bye to Mrs. Douglass's family. Fleda had seen her aunt Miriam in the morning, and bid her a conditional farewell; for, as after Mrs. Rossitur's sailing she would be with Mrs. Carleton, she judged it little likely that she should see Queechy again.

They had time for but a minute at Mrs. Douglass's. Mrs.
Rossitur had shaken hands, and was leaving the house when Mrs.
Douglass pulled Fleda back.

"Be you going to the West Indies, too, Fleda?"

"No, Mrs. Douglass."

"Then why don't you stay here?"

"I want to be with my aunt while I can," said Fleda.

"And then do you calculate to stop in New York?"

"For a while," said Fleda, colouring.

"Oh, go 'long!" said Mrs. Douglass; "I know all about it. Now, do you s'pose you're agoing to be any happier among all those great folks than you would be if you staid among little folks?" she added, tartly; while Catherine looked with a kind of incredulous admiration at the future lady of Carleton.

"I don't suppose that greatness has anything to do with happiness, Mrs. Douglass," said Fleda, gently.

So gently, and so calmly sweet the face was that said it, that
Mrs. Douglass's mood was overcome.

"Well, you aint agoing to forget Queechy?" she said, shaking
Fleda's hand with a hearty grasp.

"Never never!"

"I'll tell you what I think," said Mrs. Douglass, the tears in her eyes answering those in Fleda's; "it 'll be a happy house that gets you into it, wherever 't is! I only wish it wa'n't out o' Queechy."

Fleda thought on the whole, as she walked home, that she did not wish any such thing. Queechy seemed dismantled, and she thought she would rather go to a new place now that she had taken such a leave of everything here.

Two things remained, however, to be taken leave of the house and Barby. Happily Fleda had little time for the former. It was a busy evening, and the morning would be more busy; she contrived that all the family should go to rest before her, meaning then to have one quiet look at the old rooms by herself a leave-taking that no other eyes should interfere with. She sat down before the kitchen fire-place, but she had hardly realized that she was alone when one of the many doors opened, and Barby's tall figure walked in.

"Here you be," she half whispered. "I knowed there wouldn't be a minute's peace to-morrow; so I thought I'd bid you good-bye to-night."

Fleda gave her a smile and a hand, but did not speak. Barby drew up a chair beside her, and they sat silent for some time, while quiet tears from the eyes of each said a great many things.

"Well, I hope you'll be as happy as you deserve to be," were Barby's first words, in a voice very altered from its accustomed firm and spirited accent.

"Make some better wish for me than that, dear Barby."

"I wouldn't want any better for myself," said Barby, determinately.

"I would for you," said Fleda.

She thought of Mr. Carleton's words again, and went on in spite of herself.

"It is a mistake, Barby. The best of us do not deserve anything good; and if we have the sight of a friend's face, or the very sweet air we breathe, it is because Christ has bought it for us. Don't let us forget that, and forget him."

"I do, always," said Barby, crying, "forget everything. Fleda, I wish you'd pray for me when you are far away, for I aint as good as you be."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, touching her shoulder affectionately, "I haven't waited to be far away to do that."

Barby sobbed for a few minutes, with the strength of a strong nature that rarely gave way in that manner; and then dashed her tears right and left, not at all as if she were ashamed of them, but with a resolution not to be overcome.

"There won't be nothing good left in Queechy, when you're gone, you and Mis' Plumfield without I go and look at the place where Hugh lies "

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, with softening eyes, "won't you be something good yourself?"

Barby put up her hand to shield her face. Fleda was silent, for she saw that strong feeling was at work.

"I wish't I could," Barby broke forth at last, "if it was only for your sake."

"Dear Barby," said Fleda, "you can do this for me you can go to church, and hear what Mr. Olmney says. I should go away happier if I thought you would, and if I thought you would follow what he says; for, dear Barby, there is a time coming when you will wish you were a Christian more then you do now, and not for my sake."

"I believe there is, Fleda."

"Then, will you? Won't you give me so much pleasure?"

"I'd do a'most anything to do you a pleasure."

"Then do it, Barby."

"Well, I'll go," said Barby. "But now just think of that, Fleda how you might have stayed in Queechy all your days, and done what you liked with everybody. I'm glad you aint, though; I guess you'll be better off."

Fleda was silent upon that.

"I'd like amazingly to see how you'll be fixed," said Barby, after a trifle of ruminating. "If 't wa'n't for my old mother, I'd be 'most a mind to pull up sticks, and go after you."

"I wish you could, Barby; only I am afraid you would not like it so well there as here."

"Maybe I wouldn't. I s'pect them English folks has ways of their own, from what I've heerd tell; they set up dreadful, don't they?"

"Not all of them," said Fleda.

"No, I don't believe but what I could get along with Mr. Carleton well enough; I never see any one that knowed how to behave himself better."

Fleda gave her a smiling acknowledgment of this compliment.

"He's plenty of money, ha'n't he?"

"I believe so."

"You'll be sot up like a princess, and never have nothing to do no more."

"Oh, no!" said Fleda, laughing; "I expect to have a great deal to do; if I don't find it, I shall make it."

"I guess it 'll be pleasant work," said Barby. "Well, I don't care; you've done work enough since you've lived here that wa'n't pleasant, to play for the rest of your days; and I'm glad on't. I guess he don't hurt himself. You wouldn't stand it much longer to do as you have been doing lately."

"That couldn't be helped," said Fleda; "but that I may stand it to-morrow, I am afraid we must go to bed, Barby."

Barby bade her good-night, and left her; but Fleda's musing mood was gone. She had no longer the desire to call back the reminiscences of the old walls. All that page of her life, she felt, was turned over; and, after a few minutes' quiet survey of the familiar things, without the power of moralizing over them as she could have done half an hour before, she left them, for the next day had no eyes but for business.

It was a trying week or two before Mr. Rossitur and his family were fairly on shipboard. Fleda, as usual, and more than usual with the eagerness of affection that felt its opportunities numbered, and would gladly have concentrated the services of years into days wrought, watched, and toiled, at what expense to her own flesh and blood Mrs. Rossitur never knew, and the others were too busy to guess; but Mrs. Carleton saw the signs of it, and was heartily rejoiced when they were fairly gone and Fleda was committed to her hands.

For days, almost for weeks, after her aunt was gone, Fleda could do little but rest and sleep so great was the weariness of mind and body, and the exhaustion of the animal spirits, which had been kept upon a strain to hide her feelings and support those of others. To the very last moment affection's sweet work had been done; the eye, the voice, the smile, to say nothing of the hands, had been tasked and kept in play to put away recollections, to cheer hopes, to soften the present, to lighten the future; and, hardest of all, to do the whole by her own living example. As soon as the last look and wave of the hand were exchanged, and there was no longer anybody to lean upon her for strength and support, Fleda showed how weak she was, and sank into a state of prostration as gentle and deep almost as an infant's.

As sweet and lovely as a child, too, Mrs. Carleton declared her to be sweet and lovely as she was when a child; and there was no going beyond that. As neither this lady nor Fleda had changed essentially since the days of their former acquaintanceship, it followed that there was still as little in common between them, except, indeed, now the strong ground of affection. Whatever concerned her son concerned Mrs. Carleton in almost equal degree; anything that he valued she valued; and to have a thorough appreciation of him was a sure title to her esteem. The consequence of all this was, that Fleda was now the most precious thing in the world to her after himself; especially since her eyes, sharpened as well as opened by affection, could find in her nothing that she thought unworthy of him. In her, personally; country and blood, Mrs. Carleton might have wished changed; but her desire that her son should marry the strongest wish she had known for years had grown so despairing, that her only feeling now on the subject was joy; she was not in the least inclined to quarrel with his choice. Fleda had from her the tenderest care as well as the utmost delicacy that affection and good- breeding could teach. And Fleda needed both, for she was slow in going back to her old health and strength; and, stripped on a sudden of all her old friends, on this turning-point of her life, her spirits were in that quiet mood that would have felt any jarring most keenly.

The weeks of her first languor and weariness were over, and she was beginning again to feel and look like herself. The weather was hot and the city disagreeable now, for it was the end of June; but they had pleasant rooms upon the Battery, and Fleda's windows looked out upon the waving tops of green trees and the bright waters of the bay. She used to lie gazing out at the coming and going vessels with a curious fantastic interest in them; they seemed oddly to belong to that piece of her life, and to be weaving the threads of her future fate as they flitted about in all directions before her. In a very quiet, placid mood, not as if she wished to touch one of the threads, she lay watching the bright sails that seemed to carry the shuttle of life to and fro, letting Mrs. Carleton arrange and dispose of everything and of her as she pleased.

She was on her couch as usual, looking out one fair morning, when Mrs. Carleton came in to kiss her and ask how she did. Fleda said, "Better."

"Better! you always say 'better'," said Mrs. Carleton; "but I don't see that you get better very fast. And sober this cheek is too sober," she added, passing her hand fondly over it; "I don't like to see it so."

"That is just the way I have been feeling, Ma'am unable to rouse myself. I should be ashamed of it if I could help it."

"Mrs. Evelyn has been here begging that we would join her in a party to the Springs Saratoga. How would you like that?"

"I should like anything that you would like, Ma'am," said Fleda, with a thought how she would like to read Montepoole for Saratoga.

"The city is very hot and dusty just now."

"Very, and I am sorry to keep you in it, Mrs. Carleton."

"Keep me, love?" said Mrs. Carleton, bending down her face to her again; "it's a pleasure to be kept anywhere by you."

Fleda shut her eyes, for she could hardly bear a little word now.

"I don't like to keep you here; it is not myself I am thinking of. I fancy a change would do you good."

"You are very kind, Ma'am."

"Very interested kindness," said Mrs. Carleton. "I want to see you looking a little better before Guy comes; I am afraid he will look grave at both of us." But as she paused and stroked Fleda's cheek, it came into her mind to doubt the truth of the last assertion, and she ended off with, "I wish he would come!"

So Fleda wished truly; for now, cut off as she was from her old associations, she longed for the presence of the one friend that was to take place of them all.

"I hope we shall hear soon that there is some prospect of his getting free," Mrs. Carleton went on. "He has been gone now how many weeks? I am looking for a letter to-day. And there it is!"

The maid at this moment entered with the steamer despatches. Mrs. Carleton pounced upon the one she knew, and broke it open.

"Here it is! and there is yours, Fleda."

With kind politeness, she went off to read her own, and left Fleda to study hers at her leisure. An hour after she came in again. Fleda's face was turned from her.

"Well, what does he say?" she asked in a lively tone.

"I suppose, the same he has said to you, Ma'am," said Fleda.

"I don't suppose it, indeed," said Mrs. Carleton, laughing. "He has given me sundry charges, which, if he has given you, it is morally certain we shall never come to an understanding."

"I have received no charges," said Fleda.

"I am directed to be very careful to find out your exact wish in the matter, and to let you follow no other. So what is it, my sweet Fleda?"

"I promised," said Fleda, colouring and turning her letter over. But there she stopped.

"Whom, and what?" said Mrs. Carleton, after she had waited a reasonable time.

"Mr. Carleton."

"What did you promise, my dear Fleda?"

"That I would do as he said."

"But he wishes you to do as you please."

Fleda brought her eyes quick out of Mrs. Carleton's view, and was silent.

"What do you say, dear Fleda?" said the lady, taking her hand and bending over her.

"I am sure we shall be expected," said Fleda. "I will go."

"You are a darling girl!" said Mrs. Carleton, kissing her again and again. "I will love you for ever for that. And I am sure it will be the best thing for you the sea will do you good and ne vous en déplaise, our own home is pleasanter just now than this dusty town. I will write by this steamer and tell Guy we will be there by the next. He will have everything in readiness, I know, at all events; and in half an hour after you get there, my dear Fleda, you will be established in all your rights as well as if it had been done six months before. Guy will know how to thank you. But, after all, Fleda, you might do him this grace considering how long he has been waiting upon you."

Something in Fleda's eyes induced Mrs. Carleton to say, laughing

"What's the matter?"

"He never waited for me," said Fleda, simply.

"Didn't he? But, my dear Fleda!" said Mrs. Carleton, in amused extremity "how long is it since you knew what he came out here for?"

"I don't know now, Ma'am," said Fleda. But she became angelically rosy the next minute.

"He never told you?"

"No."

"And you never asked him?"

"Why, no, Ma'am!"

"He will be well suited in a wife," said Mrs. Carleton, laughing. "But he can have no objection to your knowing now, I suppose. He never told me but at the latest. You must know, Fleda, that it has been my wish for a great many years that Guy would marry and I almost despaired, he was so difficult to please his taste in everything is so fastidious; but I am glad of it now," she added, kissing Fleda's cheek. "Last spring not this last, but a year ago one evening at home I was talking to him on this subject; but he met everything I said lightly you know his way and I saw my words took no hold. I asked him at last in a kind of desperation, if he supposed there was a woman in the world that could please him; and he laughed, and said, if there was, he was afraid she was not in that hemisphere. And a day or two after he told me he was going to America."

"Did he say for what?"

"No; but I guessed, as soon as I found he was prolonging his stay, and I was sure when he wrote me to come out to him. But I never knew till I landed, Fleda, my dear, any more than that. The first question I asked him was who he was going to introduce to me."

The interval was short to the next steamer, but also the preparations were few. A day or two after the foregoing conversation, Constance Evelyn coming into Fleda's room, found her busy with some light packing.

"My dear little creature!" she exclaimed ecstatically, "are you going with us?"

"No," said Fleda.

"Where are you going, then?"

"To England."

"England? Has I mean, is there any addition to my list of acquaintances in the city?"

"Not that I know of," said Fleda, going on with her work.

"And you are going to England! Greenhouses will be a desolation to me! "

"I hope not," said Fleda, smiling; "you will recover yourself, and your sense of sweetness, in time."

"It will have nothing to act upon! And you are going to England! I think it is very mean of you not to ask me to go too, and be your bridesmaid."

"I don't expect to have such a thing," said Fleda.

"Not? Horrid! I wouldn't be married so, Fleda. You don't know the world, little Queechy; the art de vous faire valoir, I am afraid, is unknown to you."

"So it may remain with my good will," said Fleda.

"Why?" said Constance.

"I have never felt the want of it," said Fleda, simply.

"When are you going?" said Constance, after a minute's pause.

"By the 'Europa.' "

"But this is a very sudden move?"

"Yes; very sudden."

"I should think you would want a little time to make preparations."

"That is all happily taken off my hands," said Fleda. "Mrs. Carleton has written to her sister in England to take care of it for me."

"I didn't know that Mrs. Carleton had a sister. What's her name?"

"Lady Peterborough."

Constance was silent again.

"What are you going to do about mourning, Fleda? wear white, I suppose. As nobody there knows anything about you, you won't care."

"I do not care in the least," said Fleda, calmly; "my feeling would quite as soon choose white as black. Mourning so often goes alone, that I should think grief might be excused for shunning its company."

"And as you have not put it on yet," said Constance, "you won't feel the change. And then, in reality, after all, he was only a cousin."

Fleda's quiet mood, sober and tender as it was, could go to a certain length of endurance, but this asked too much. Dropping the things from her hands, she turned from the trunk beside which she was kneeling, and hiding her face on a chair, wept such tears as cousins never shed for each other. Constance was startled and distressed; and Fleda's quick sympathy knew that she must be, before she could see it.

"You needn't mind it at all, dear Constance," she said, as soon as she could speak "it's no matter I am in such a mood sometimes that I cannot bear anything. Don't think of it," she said, kissing her.

Constance, however, could not for the remainder of her visit get back her wonted light mood, which indeed had been singularly wanting to her during the whole interview.

Mrs. Carleton counted the days to the steamer, and her spirits rose with each one. Fleda's spirits were quiet to the last degree, and passive too passive, Mrs. Carleton thought. She did not know the course of the years that had gone, and could not understand how strangely Fleda seemed to herself now to stand alone, broken off from her old friends and her former life, on a little piece of time that was like an isthmus joining two continents. Fleda felt it all exceedingly; felt that she was changing from one sphere of life to another; never forgot the graves she had left at Queechy, and as little the thoughts and prayers that had sprung up beside them. She felt, with all Mrs. Carleton's kindness, that she was completely alone, with no one on her side the ocean to look to; and glad to be relieved from taking active part in anything, she made her little Bible her companion for the greater part of the time.

"Are you going to carry that sober face all the way to
Carleton?" said Mrs. Carleton one day pleasantly.

"I don't know, Ma'am."

"What do you suppose Guy will think of it?"

But the thought of what he would think of it, and what he would say to it, and how fast he would brighten it, made Fleda burst into tears. Mrs. Carleton resolved to talk to her no more, but to get her home as fast as possible.

"I have one consolation," said Charlton Rossitur, as he shook hands with her on board the steamer; "I have received permission, from head-quarters, to come and see you in England; and to that I shall look forward constantly from this time."

CHAPTER XXVII.

"The full sum of me
Is sum of something; which to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd:
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king."
MERCHANT OF VENICE.

They had a very speedy passage to the other side, and partly in consequence of that Mr. Carleton was not found waiting for them in Liverpool. Mrs. Carleton would not tarry there, but hastened down at once to the country, thinking to be at home before the news of their arrival.

It was early morning of one fair day in July when they were at last drawing near the end of their journey. They would have reached it the evening before but for a storm which had constrained them to stop and wait over the night at a small town about eight miles off. For fear, then, of passing Guy on the road, his mother sent a servant before, and, making an extraordinary exertion, was actually herself in the carriage by seven o'clock.

Nothing could be fairer than that early drive, if Fleda might have enjoyed it in peace. The sweet morning air was exceeding sweet, and the summer light fell upon a perfect luxuriance of green things. Out of the carriage Fleda's spirits were at home, but not within it; and it was sadly irksome to be obliged to hear and respond to Mrs. Carleton's talk, which was kept up, she knew, in the charitable intent to divert her. She was just in a state to listen to nature's talk; to the other she attended and replied with a patient longing to be left free that she might steady and quiet herself. Perhaps Mrs. Carleton's tact discovered this in the matter-of-course and uninterested manner of her rejoinders; for, as they entered the park-gates, she became silent, and the long drive from them to the house was made without a word on either side.

For a length of way the road was through a forest of trees of noble growth, which in some places closed their arms overhead, and in all sentinelled the path in stately array. The eye had no scope beyond the ranks of this magnificent body; Carleton park was celebrated for its trees; but magnificent though they were, and dearly as Fleda loved every form of forest beauty she felt oppressed. The eye forbidden to range, so was the mind, shut in to itself; and she only felt under the gloom and shadow of those great trees the shadow of the responsibilities and of the change that were coming upon her. But after a while the ranks began to be thinned and the ground to be broken; the little touches of beauty with which the sun had enlivened the woodland began to grow broader and cheerfuller; and then as the forest scattered away to the right and left, gay streams of light came through the glades and touched the surface of the rolling ground, where, in the hollows, on the heights, on the sloping sides of the dingles, knots of trees of yet more luxuriant and picturesque growth, planted or left by the cultivator's hand long ago, and trained by no hand but nature's, stood so as to distract a painter's eye; and just now, in the fresh gilding of the morning, and with all the witchery of the long shadows upon the uneven ground, certainly charmed Fleda's eye and mind both. Fancy was dancing again, albeit with one hand upon gravity's shoulder, and the dancing was a little nervous too. But she looked and caught her breath as she looked, while the road led along the very edge of a dingle, and then was lost in a kind of enchanted open woodland it seemed so and then passing through a thicket came out upon a broad sweep of green turf that wiled the eye by its smooth facility to the distant screen of oaks and beeches and firs on its far border. It was all new. Fleda's memory had retained only an indistinct vision of beauty, like the face of an angel in a cloud as painters have drawn it; now came out the beautiful features one after another, as if she had never seen them.

So far nature had seemed to stand alone. But now another hand appeared; not interfering with nature, but adding to her. The road came upon a belt of the shrubbery where the old tenants of the soil were mingled with lighter and gayer companionship, and in some instances gave it place, though in general the mingling was very graceful. There was never any crowding of effects; it seemed all nature still, only as if several climes had joined together to grace one. Then that was past; and over smooth undulating ground, bearing a lighter growth of foreign wood, with here and there a stately elm or ash that disdained their rivalry, the carriage came under the brown walls and turrets of the house. Fleda's mood had changed again, and, as the grave outlines rose above her, half remembered, and all the more for that imposing, she trembled at the thought of what she had come there to do and to be. She felt very nervous and strange and out of place, and longed for the familiar face and voice that would bid her be at home. Mrs. Carleton, now, was not enough of a stand-by. With all that, Fleda descended from the carriage with her usual quiet demureness; no one that did not know her well would have seen in her any other token of emotion than a somewhat undue and wavering colour.

They were welcomed, at least one of them was, with every appearance of sincerity by the most respectable-looking personage who opened to them, and whom Fleda remembered instantly. The array of servants in the hall would almost have startled her if she had not recollected the same thing on her first coming to Carleton. She stepped in with a curious sense of that first time, when she had come there a little child.

"Where is your master?" was Mrs. Carleton's immediate demand.

"Mr. Carleton set off this morning for Liverpool."

Mrs. Carleton gave a quick glance at Fleda, who kept her eyes at home.

"We did not meet him we have not passed him how long ago?" were her next rapid words.

"My master left Carleton as early as five o'clock; he gave orders to drive as fast as possible."

"Then he had gone through Hollonby an hour before we left it," said Mrs. Carleton, looking again to her companion; "but he will hear of us at Carstairs we stopped there yesterday afternoon he will be back again in a few hours, I am sure. Then we have been expected?"

"Yes Ma'am my master gave orders that you should be expected."

"Is all well, Popham?"

"All is well, Madam."

"Is Lady Peterborough here?"

"His Lordship and Lady Peterborough arrived the day before yesterday," was the succinct reply.

Drawing Fleda's arm within hers, and giving kind recognition to the rest who stood around, Mrs. Carleton led her to the stairs and mounted them, repeating in a whisper, "He will be here presently again." They went to Mrs. Carleton's dressing- room, Fleda wondering in an internal fever, whether "orders had been given" to expect her also? from the old butler's benign look at her, as he said, "All is well!" she could not help thinking it. If she maintained her outward quiet, it was the merest external crust of seeming; there was nothing like quiet beneath it; and Mrs. Carleton's kiss and fond words of welcome were hardly composing.

Mrs. Carleton made her sit down, and with very gentle hands was busy arranging her hair, when the housekeeper came in to pay her more particular respects, and to offer her services. Fleda hardly ventured a glance to see whether she looked benign. She was a dignified elderly person, as stately and near as handsome as Mrs. Carleton herself.

"My dear Fleda," said the latter, when she had finished the hair, "I am going to see my sister; will you let Mrs. Fothergill help you in anything you want, and take you then to the library you will find no one, and I will come to you there. Mrs. Fothergill, I recommend you to the particular care of this lady."

The recommendation was not needed, Fleda thought, or was very effectual; the housekeeper served her with most assiduous care, and in absolute silence. Fleda hurried the finishing of her toilet.

"Are the people quiet in the country?" she forced herself to say.

"Perfectly quiet, Ma'am. It needed only that my master should be at home to make them so."

"How is that?"

"He has their love and their ear, Ma'am, and so it is that he can just do his pleasure with them."

"How is it in the neighbouring country?"

"They're quiet, Ma'am, I believe mostly there's been some little disturbance in one place and another, and more fear of it, as well as I can make out, but it's well got over, as it appears. The noblemen and gentlemen in the country around were very glad, all of them, I am told, of Mr. Carleton's return. Is there nothing more I can do for you, Ma'am?"

The last question was put with an indefinable touch of kindliness which had not softened the respect of her first words. Fleda begged her to show the way to the library, which Mrs. Fothergill immediately did, remarking, as she ushered her in, that "those were Mr. Carleton's favourite rooms."

Fleda did not need to be told that; she put the remark and the
benignity together, and drew a nervous inference. But Mrs.
Fothergill was gone, and she was alone. Nobody was there, as
Mrs. Carleton had said.

Fleda stood still in the middle of the floor, looking around her, in a bewildered effort to realize the past and the present; with all the mind in the world to cry, but there was too great a pressure of excitement, and too much strangeness of feeling at work. Nothing before her, in the dimly familiar place, served at all to lessen this feeling, and, recovering from her maze, she went to one of the glazed doors, which stood open, and turned her back upon the room with its oppressive recollections. Her eye lighted upon nothing that was not quiet now. A secluded piece of smooth green, partially bordered with evergreens, and set with light shrubbery of rare kinds, exquisitely kept; over against her a sweetbriar that seemed to have run wild, indicating, Fleda was sure, the entrance of the path to the rose garden, that her memory alone would hardly have helped her to find. All this in the bright early summer morning, and the sweet aromatic smell of firs and flowers coming with every breath. There were draughts of refreshment in the air. It composed her, and drinking it in delightedly, Fleda stood with folded arms in the doorway, half forgetting herself and her position, and going in fancy from the firs and the roses, over a very wide field of meditation indeed. So lost that she started fearfully on suddenly becoming aware that a figure had come just beside her.

It was an elderly and most gentlemanly-looking man, as a glance made her know. Fleda was reassured and ashamed in a breath. The gentleman did not notice her confusion, however, otherwise than by a very pleasant and well-bred smile, and immediately entered into some light remarks on the morning, the place, and the improvements Mr. Carleton had made in the latter. Though he said the place was one of those which could bear very well to want improvement; but Carleton was always finding something to do which excited his admiration.

"Landscape gardening is one of the pleasantest of amusements," said Fleda.

"I have just knowledge enough in the matter to admire; to originate any ideas is beyond me; I have to depend for them upon my gardener and my wife, and so I lose a pleasure, I suppose; but every man has his own particular hobby. Carleton, however, has more than his share he has half a dozen, I think."

"Half a dozen hobbies!" said Fleda.

"Perhaps I should not call them hobbies, for he manages to ride them all skilfully; and a hobby-horse, I believe, always runs away with a man."

Fleda could hardly return his smile. She thought people were possessed with an unhappy choice of subjects in talking to her that morning. But fancying that she had very ill kept up her part in the conversation, and must have looked like a simpleton, she forced herself to break the silence which followed the last remark, and asked the same question she had asked Mrs. Fothergill if the country was quiet?

"Outwardly quiet," he said; "O yes there is no more difficulty that is, none which cannot easily be handled. There was some danger a few months ago, but it is blown over; all was quiet on Carleton's estates so soon as he was at home, and that, of course, had great influence on the neighbourhood. No, there is nothing to be apprehended. He has the hearts of his people completely, and one who has their hearts can do what he pleases with their heads, you know. Well, he deserves it he has done a great deal for them."

Fleda was afraid to ask in what way; but perhaps he read the question in her eyes.

"That's one of his hobbies ameliorating the condition of the poorer classes on his estates. He has given himself to it for some years back; he has accomplished a great deal for them a vast deal indeed! He has changed the face of things, mentally and morally, in several places, with his adult schools, and agricultural systems, and I know not what; but the most powerful means, I think, after all, has been the weight of his personal influence, by which he can introduce and carry through any measure; neither ignorance, nor prejudice, nor obstinacy, seem to make head against him. It requires a peculiar combination of qualities, I think very peculiar and rare to deal successfully with the mind of the masses."

"I should think so, indeed," said Fleda.

"He has it I don't comprehend it and I have not studied his machinery enough to understand that; but I have seen the effects. Never should have thought he was the kind of man either but there it is I don't comprehend him. There is only one fault to be found with him, though."

"What is that?" said Fleda, smiling.

"He has built a fine Dissenting chapel down here towards Hollonby," he said, gravely, looking her in the face "and, what is yet worse, his uncle tells me, he goes there half the time himself."

Fleda could not help laughing, nor colouring, at his manner.

"I thought it was always considered a meritorious action to build a church," she said.

"Indubitably. But you see, this was a chapel."

The laugh and the colour both grew more unequivocal Fleda could not help it.

"I beg your pardon, Sir I have not learned such nice distinctions. Perhaps a chapel was wanted just in that place."

"That is presumable. But he might be wanted somewhere else. However," said the gentleman, with a good-humoured smile "his uncle forgives him; and if his mother cannot influence him, I am afraid nobody else will. There is no help for it. And I should be very sorry to stand ill with him. I have given you the dark side of his character."

"What is the other side in the contrast?" said Fleda, wondering at herself for her daring.

"It is not for me to say," he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders and an amused glance at her; "I suppose it depends upon people's vision but if you will permit me, I will instance a bright spot that was shown to me the other day, that I confess, when I look at it, dazzles my eyes a little."

Fleda only bowed; she dared not speak again.

"There was a poor fellow the son of one of Mr. Carleton's old tenants down here at Enchapel who was under sentence of death, lying in prison at Carstairs. The father, I am told, is an excellent man, and a good tenant; the son had been a miserable scapegrace, and now for some crime I forget what had at last been brought to justice. The evidence against him was perfect, and the offence was not trifling; there was not the most remote chance of a pardon, but it seemed the poor wretch had been building up his dependence upon that hope, and was resting on it; and, consequently, was altogether indisposed and unfit to give his attention to the subjects that his situation rendered proper for him.

"The gentleman who gave me this story was requested by a brother clergyman to go with him to visit the prisoner. They found him quite stupid unmovable by all that could be urged, or rather, perhaps, the style of the address, as it was described to me, was fitted to confound find bewilder the man rather than enlighten him. In the midst of all this, Mr. Carleton came in he was just then on the wing for America, and he had heard of the poor creature's condition in a visit to his father. He came my informant said like a being of a different planet. He took the man's hand he was chained foot and wrist 'My poor friend,' he said, 'I have been thinking of you here, shut out from the light of the sun, and I thought you might like to see the face of a friend;' with that singular charm of manner which he knows how to adapt to everybody and every occasion. The man was melted at once at his feet, as it were he could do anything with him. Carleton began then, quietly, to set before him the links in the chain of evidence which had condemned him one by one in such a way as to prove to him, by degrees, but irresistibly, that he had no hope in this world. The man was perfectly subdued sat listening and looking into those powerful eyes that perhaps you know taking in all his words, and completely in his hand. And then Carleton went on to bring before him the considerations that he thought should affect him in such a case, in a way that this gentleman said was indescribably effective and winning; till that hardened creature was broken down sobbing like a child actually sobbing!"

Fleda did her best, but she was obliged to hide her face in her hands, let what would be thought of her.

"It was the finest exhibition of eloquence, this gentleman said, he had ever listened to. For me it was an exhibition of another kind. I would have believed such an account of few men, but of all the men I know I would least have believed it of Guy Carleton a few years ago; even now I can hardly believe it. But it is a thing that would do honour to any man."

Fleda felt that the tears were making their way between her fingers, but she could not help it; and she presently knew that her companion had gone, and she was left alone again. Who was this gentleman? and how much did he know about her? More than that she was a stranger, Fleda was sure; and dreading his return, or that somebody else might come and find her with the tokens of tears upon her face, she stepped out upon the greensward, and made for the flaunting sweet-briar that seemed to beckon her to visit its relations.

The entrance of a green path was there, or a grassy glade, more or less wide, leading through a beautiful growth of firs and larches. No roses, nor any other ornamental shrubs only the soft well-kept footway through the woodland. Fleda went gently on and on, admiring where the trees sometimes swept back, leaving an opening, and at other places stretched their graceful branches over her head. The perfect condition of everything to the eye the rich coloured vegetation of varying colour above and below the absolute retirement, and the strong pleasant smell of the evergreens, had a kind of charmed effect upon senses and mind too. It was a fairyland sort of place. The presence of its master seemed everywhere it was like him, and Fleda pressed on to see yet livelier marks of his character and fancy beyond. By degrees the wood began to thin on one side then at once the glade opened into a bright little lawn, rich with roses in full bloom. Fleda was stopped short at the sudden vision of loveliness. There was the least possible appearance of design no dry beds were to be seen the luxuriant clumps of Provence and white roses, with the varieties of the latter seemed to have chosen their own places, only to have chosen them very happily. One hardly imagined that they had submitted to dictation, if it were not that Queen Flora never was known to make so effective a disposition of her forces without help. The screen of trees was very thin on the border of this opening so thin that the light from beyond came through. On a slight rocky elevation, which formed the further side of it, sat an exquisite little Gothic chapel, about which, and the face of the rock below, some noisette and multiflora climbers were vying with each other, and just at the entrance of the further path a white dog-rose had thrown itself over the way, covering the lower branches of the trees with its blossoms.

Fleda stood spell-bound a good while, with a breath oppressed with pleasure. But what she had seen excited her to see more, and a dim recollection of the sea-view from somewhere in the walk drew her on. Roses met her now frequently. Now and then a climber, all alone, seemed to have sought protection in a tree by the path-side, and to have displayed itself thence in the very wantonness of security, hanging out its flowery wreaths, fearless of hand or knife. Clusters of noisettes, or of French or damask roses, where the ground was open enough, stood without a rival, and needing no foil other than the beautiful surrounding of dark evergreen foliage. But the distance was not long before she came out upon a wider opening, and found what she was seeking the sight of the sea. The glade here was upon the brow of high ground, and the wood disappearing entirely for a space, left the eye free to go over the lower tree-tops, and the country beyond to the distant shore and sea-line. Roses were here too the air was full of the sweetness of damask and Bourbon varieties and a few beautiful banksias, happily placed, contrasted without interfering with them. It was very still it was very perfect the distant country was fresh-coloured with the yet early light which streamed between the trees, and laid lines of enchantment upon the green turf; and the air came up from the sea-board, and bore the breath of the roses to Fleda every now and then with a gentle puff of sweetness. Such light she had seen none such light since she was a child. Was it the burst of mental sunshine that had made it so bright? or was she going to be really a happy child again? No no not that, and yet something very like it so like it, that she almost startled at herself. She went no further. She could not have borne, just then, to see any more; and feeling her heart too full, she stood even there, with hands crossed upon her bosom, looking away from the roses to the distant sea-line.

That said something very different. That was very sobering; if she had needed sobering, which she did not. But it helped her to arrange the scattered thoughts which had been pressing confusedly upon her brain. "Look away from the roses," indeed, she could not, for the same range of vision took in the sea and them and the same range of thought. These might stand for an emblem of the present; that, of the future grave, far-off, impenetrable; and passing, as it were, the roses of time, Fleda fixed upon that image of eternity; and weighing the one against the other, felt, never in her life more keenly, how wild it would be to forget in smelling the roses her preparations for that distant voyage that must be made from the shores where they grow. With one eye upon this brightest bit of earth before her, the other mentally was upon Hugh's grave. The roses could not be sweeter to any one; but, in view of the launching away in to that distant sea-line, in view of the issues on the other shore, in view of the welcome that might be had there the roses might fade and wither, but her happiness could not go with their breath. They were something to be loved, to be used, to be thankful for but not to live upon; something too that whispered of an increased burden of responsibility, and never more deeply than at that moment did Fleda remember her mother's prayer never more simply recognised that happiness could not be made of these things. She might be as happy at Queechy as here. It depended on the sun-light of undying hopes, which indeed would give wonderful colour to the flowers that might be in her way; on the possession of resources the spring of which would never dry; on the peace which secures the continual feast of a merry heart, Fleda could take her new honours and advantages very meekly, and very soberly, with all her appreciation of them. The same work of life was to be done here as at Queechy. To fulfil the trust committed to her, larger here to keep her hope for the future undeceived by the sunshine of earth, to plant her roses where they would bloom everlastingly.

The weight of these things bowed Fleda to the ground and made her bury her face in her hands. But there was one item of happiness from which her thoughts never even in imagination dissevered themselves, and round it they gathered now in their weakness. A strong mind and heart to uphold hers a strong hand for hers to rest in that was a blessing; and Fleda would have cried heartily, but that her feelings were too high-wrought. They made her deaf to the light sound of footsteps coming over the grass, till two hands gently touched hers and lifted her up, and then Fleda was at home. But, surprised and startled, she could hardly lift up her face. Mr. Carleton's greeting was as grave and gentle as if she had been a stray child.

"Do not fancy I am going to thank you for the grace you have shown me," said he, lightly. "I know you would never have done it if circumstances had not been hard pleaders in my cause. I will thank you presently when you have answered one or two questions for me."

"Questions?" said Fleda, looking up. But she blushed the next instant at her own simplicity.

He was leading her back on the path she had come. No further, however, than to the first opening where the climbing dog-rose hung over the way. There he turned aside, crossing the little plot of greensward, and they ascended some steps cut in the rock to the chapel Fleda had looked at from a distance.

It stood high enough to command the same sea-view. On that side it was entirely open, and of very light construction on the others.

Several people were there; Fleda could hardly tell how many; and when Lord Peterborough was presented to her, she did not find out that he was her morning's acquaintance. Her eye only took in besides that there were one or two ladies, and a clergyman in the dress of the Church of England; she could not distinguish. Yet she stood beside Mr. Carleton with all her usual quiet dignity, though her eye did not leave the ground, and her words were in no higher key than was necessary, and though she could hardly bear the unchanged easy tone of his. The birds were in a perfect ecstasy all about them; the soft breeze came through the trees, gently waving the branches and stirring the spray wreaths of the roses, the very fluttering of summer's drapery; some roses looked in at the lattice, and those which could not be there sent in their congratulations on the breath of the wind, while the words were spoken that bound them together.

Mr. Carleton then dismissing his guests to the house, went with Fleda again the other way. He had felt the extreme trembling of the hand which he took, and would not go in till it was quieted. He led her back to the very rose-bush where he had found her, and in his own way presently brought her spirit home from its trembling and made it rest; and then suffered her to stand a few minutes quite silent, looking out again over the fair rich spread of country that lay between them and the sea.

"Now tell me, Elfie," said he, softly, drawing back, with the same old caressing and tranquillizing touch, the hair that hung over her brow, "what you were thinking about when I found you here in the very luxury of seclusion behind a rose- bush."

Fleda looked a quick look, smiled, and hesitated, and then said it was rather a confusion of thoughts.

"It will be a confusion no longer when you have disentangled them for me."

"I don't know" said Fleda. And she was silent, but so was he, quietly waiting for her to go on.

"Perhaps you will wonder at me, Mr. Carleton," she said, hesitating and colouring.

"Perhaps," he said, smiling; "but if I do, I will not keep you in ignorance, Elfie."

"I was almost bewildered, in the first place, with beauty and then "

"Do you like the rose garden?"

"Like it! I cannot speak of it!"

"I don't want you to speak of it," said he, smiling at her.
"What followed upon liking it, Elfie?"

"I was thinking," said Fleda, looking resolutely away from him, "in the midst of all this that it is not these things which make people happy."

"There is no question of that," he replied. "I have realized it thoroughly for a few months past."

"No, but seriously, I mean," said Fleda, pleadingly.

"And, seriously, you are quite right, dear Elfie. What then?"

"I was thinking," said Fleda, speaking with some difficulty "of Hugh's grave and of the comparative value of things; and, afraid, I believe especially here "

"Of making a wrong estimate?"

"Yes; and of not doing and being just what I ought."

Mr. Carleton was silent for a minute, considering the brow from which his fingers drew off the light screen.

"Will you trust me to watch over and tell you?"

Fleda did not trust her voice to tell him, but her eyes did it.

"As to the estimate the remedy is to 'keep ourselves in the
love of God;' and then these things are the gifts of our
Father's hand, and will never be put in competition with him.
And they are never so sweet as when taken so."

"Oh, I know that!"

"This is a danger I share with you. We will watch over each other."

Fleda was silent with filling eyes.

"We do not seek our happiness in these things," he said, tenderly. "I never found it in them. For years, whatever others may have judged, I have felt myself a poor man; because I had not in the world a friend in whom I could have entire sympathy. And if I am rich now, it is not in any treasure that I look to enjoy in this world alone."

"Oh, do not, Mr. Carleton!" exclaimed Fleda, bowing her head in distress, and giving his hand an earnest entreaty.

"What shall I not do?" said he, half laughing and half gently, bringing her face near enough for his lips to try another kind of eloquence. "You shall not do this, Elfie, for any so light occasion. Was this the whole burden of those grave thoughts?"

"Not quite entirely" she said, stammering. "But grave thoughts are not always unhappy."

"Not always. I want to know what gave yours a tinge of that colour this morning."

"It was hardly that. You know what Foster says about 'power to its very last particle being duty.' I believe it frightened me a little."

"If you feel that as strongly as I do, Elfie, it will act as a strong corrective to the danger of false estimates."

"I do feel it," said Fleda. "One of my fears was that I should not feel it enough."

"One of my cares will be that you do not act upon it too fiercely," said he, smiling. "The power being limited, so is the duty. But you shall have power enough, Elfie, and work enough. I have precisely what I have needed my good sprite back again."

"With a slight difference."

"What difference?"

"She is to act under direction now."

"Not at all only under safe control," he said, laughing.

"I am very glad of the difference, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a grave and grateful remembrance of it.

"If you think the sprite's old office is gone, you are mistaken," said he. "What were your other fears? one was that you should not feel enough your responsibility, and the other that you might forget it."

"I don't know that there were any other particular fears," said Fleda; "I had been thinking of all these things "

"And what else?"

Her colour and her silence begged him not to ask. He said no more, and let her stand still again, looking off through the roses, while her mind more quietly and lightly went over the same train of thoughts that had moved it before; gradually calmed; came back from being a stranger to being at home, at least in one presence; and ended, her action even before her look told him where, as her other hand unconsciously was joined to the one already on his arm. A mute expression of feeling, the full import of which he read, even before her eye, coming back from its musings, was raised to him, perhaps unconsciously, too, with all the mind in it; its timidity was not more apparent than its simplicity of clinging affection and dependence. Mr. Carleton's answer was in three words, but in the tone and manner that accompanied them there was a response to every part of her appeal so perfect that Fleda was confused at her own frankness.

They began to move towards the house, but Fleda was in a maze again and could hardly realize anything. "His wife!" was she that? had so marvellous a change really been wrought in her? the little asparagus-cutter of Queechy transformed into the mistress of all this domain, and of the stately mansion of which they caught glimpses now and then, as they drew near it by another approach into which Mr. Carleton had diverged. And his wife! that was the hardest to realise of all.

She was as far from realising it when she got into the house. They entered now at once into the breakfast-room, where the same party were gathered whom she had met once before that morning. Mr. Carleton the elder, and Lord Peterborough and Lady Peterborough, she had met without seeing. But Fleda could look at them now; and if her colour came and went as frankly as when she was a child, she could speak to them and meet their advances with the same free and sweet self-possession as then the rare dignity a little wood-flower, that is moved by a breath, but recovers as easily and instantly its quiet standing. There were one or two who looked a little curiously at first to see whether this new member of the family were worthy of her place and would fill it to satisfy them. Not Mr. Carleton; he never sought to ascertain the value of anything that belonged to him by a popular vote; and his own judgment always stood carelessly alone. But Mrs. Carleton was less sure of her own ground, or of others. For five minutes she noted Fleda's motions and words, her blushes and smiles, as she stood talking to one and another for five minutes, and then, with a little smile at her sister, Mrs. Carleton moved off to the breakfast-table, well pleased that Lady Peterborough was too engaged to answer her. Fleda had won them all. Mr. Carleton's intervening shield of grace and kindness was only needed here against the too much attention or attraction that might distress her. He was again, now they were in presence of others, exactly what he had been to her when she was a child the same cool and efficient friend and protector. Nobody in the room showed less thought of her, except in action; a great many little things done for her pleasure or comfort, so quietly that nobody knew it but one person, and she hardly noticed it at the time. All could not have the same tact.

There was an uninterrupted easy flow of talk at the table, which Fleda heard just enough to join in where it was necessary; the rest of the time she sat in a kind of abstraction, dipping enormous strawberries one by one into white sugar, with a curious want of recognition between them and the ends of her fingers; it never occurred to her that they had picked baskets full.

"I have done something for which you will hardly thank me, Mr. Carleton," said Lord Peterborough. "I have driven this lady to tears within the first hour of her being in the house."

"If she will forgive you, I will, my lord," Mr. Carleton answered, carelessly.

"I will confess myself, though," continued his lordship, looking at the face that was so intent over the strawberries, "I was under the impression, when I first saw a figure in the window, that it was Lady Peterborough. I own, as soon as I found it was a stranger, I had my suspicions, which did not lack confirmation in the course of the interview. I trust I am forgiven the means I used."

"It seems you had your curiosity, too, my lord," said Mr.
Carleton, the uncle.

"Which ought, in all justice, to have lacked gratification," said Lady Peterborough. "I hope Fleda will not be too ready to forgive you."

"I expect forgiveness, nevertheless," said he, looking at
Fleda. "Must I wait for it?"

"I am much obliged to you, Sir."

And then she gave him a very frank smile and blush, as she added, "I beg pardon you know my tongue is American."

"I don't like that," said his lordship, gravely.

"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," said the elder Carleton. "The heart being English, we may hope the tongue will become so too."

"I will not assure you of that, Sir," Fleda said, laughing, though her cheeks showed the conversation was not carried on without effort. Oddly enough, nobody saw it with any dissatisfaction.

"Of what, Madam?" said Lord Peterborough.

"That I will not always keep a rag of the stars and stripes flying somewhere."

But that little speech had almost been too much for her equanimity.

"Like Queen Elizabeth, who retained the crucifix when she gave up the profession of Popery."

"Very unlike indeed!" said Fleda, endeavouring to understand what Mr. Carleton was saying to her about wood strawberries and hautbois.

"Will you allow that, Carleton?"

"What, my lord?"

"A rival banner to float alongside of St. George's?"

"The flags are friendly, my lord."

"Hum just now they may seem so. Has your little standard- bearer anything of a rebellious disposition."

"Not against any lawful authority, I hope," said Fleda.

"Then there is hope for you, Mr. Carleton, that you will be able to prevent the introduction of mischievous doctrines."

"For shame, Lord Peterborough!' said his wife "what atrocious suppositions you are making! I am blushing, I am sure, for your want of discernment."

"Why yes" said his lordship, looking at another face whose blushes were more unequivocal "it may seem so there is no appearance of anything untoward, but she is a woman after all. I will try her. Mrs. Carleton, don't you think with my Lady Peterborough that in the present nineteenth century women ought to stand more on that independent footing from which lordly monopoly has excluded them?"

The first name Fleda thought belonged to another person, and her downcast eyelids prevented her seeing to whom it was addressed. It was no matter, for any answer was anticipated.

"The boast of independence is not engrossed by the boldest footing, my lord."

"She has never considered the subject," said Lady
Peterborough.

"It is no matter," said his lordship. "I must respectfully beg an answer to my question."

The silence made Fleda look up.

"Don't you think that the rights of the weak ought to be on a perfect equality with those of the strong?"

"The rights of the weak as such yes, my lord."

The gentlemen smiled; the ladies looked rather puzzled.

"I have no more to say, Mr. Carleton," said his lordship, "but that we must make an Englishwoman of her!"

"I am afraid she will never be a perfect cure," said Mr.
Carleton, smiling.

"I conceive it might require peculiar qualities in the physician but I do not despair. I was telling her of some of your doings this morning, and happy to see that they met with her entire disapproval."

Mr. Carleton did not even glance towards Fleda, and made no answer, but carelessly gave the conversation another turn; for which she thanked him unspeakably.

There was no other interruption of any consequence to the well-bred flow of talk and kindliness of manner on the part of all the company, that put Fleda as much as possible at her ease. Still she did not realise anything, and yet she did realise it so strongly, that her woman's heart could not rest till it had eased itself in tears. The superbly appointed table at which she sat her own, though Mrs. Carleton this morning presided the like of which she had not seen since she was at Carleton before; the beautiful room with its arrangements, bringing back a troop of recollections of that old time; all the magnificence about her, instead of elevating, sobered her spirits to the last degree. It pressed home upon her that feeling of responsibility, of the change that come over her; and though beneath it all very happy, Fleda hardly knew it, she longed so to be alone, and to cry. One person's eyes, however little seemingly observant of her, read sufficiently well the unusual shaded air of her brow and her smile. But a sudden errand of business called him abroad immediately after breakfast.

The ladies seized the opportunity to carry Fleda up and introduce her to her dressing-room, and take account of Lady Peterborough's commission, and ladies and ladies' maids soon formed a busy committee of dress and decorations. It did not enliven Fleda it wearied her, though she forgave them the annoyance in gratitude for the pleasure they took in looking at her. Even the delight her eye had from the first minute she saw it, in the beautiful room, and her quick sense of the carefulness with which it had been arranged for her, added to the feeling with which she was oppressed; she was very passive in the hands of her friends.

In the midst of all this the housekeeper was called in and formally presented, and received by Fleda with a mixture of frankness and bashfulness that caused Mrs. Fothergill afterwards to pronounce her "a lady of a very sweet dignity indeed."

"She is just such a lady as you might know my master would have fancied," said Mr. Spenser.

"And what kind of a lady is that?" said Mrs. Fothergill.

But Mr. Spenser was too wise to enter into any particulars, and merely informed Mrs. Fothergill that she would know in a few days.

"The first words Mrs. Carleton said when Mr. Carleton got home," said the old butler "she put both her hands on his arms and cried out, 'Guy, I am delighted with her!' "

"And what did he say?" said Mrs. Fothergill.

"He!" echoed Mr. Spenser, in a tone of indignant intelligence "what should he say! He didn't say anything; only asked where she was, I believe."

In the midst of silks, muslins, and jewels, Mr. Carleton found Fleda still, on his return; looking pale, and even sad, though nobody but himself, through her gentle and grateful bearing, would have discerned it. He took her out of the hands of the committee, and carried her down to the little library, adjoining the great one, but never thrown open his room, as it was called where more particularly art and taste had accumulated their wealth of attractions.

"I remember this very well," said Fleda. "This beautiful room!"

"It is as free to you as to me, Elfie; and I never gave the freedom of it to any one else."

"I will not abuse it," said Fleda.

"I hope not, my dear Elfie," said he smiling, "for the room will want something to me now when you are not in it; and a gift is abused that is not made free use of."

A large and deep bay-window in the room looked upon the same green lawn and fir wood, with the windows of the library. Like these, this casement stood open, and Mr. Carleton, leading Fleda there, remained quietly beside her for a moment, watching her face, which his last words had a little moved from its outward composure. Then, gently and gravely, as if she had been a child, putting his arm round her shoulders, and drawing her to him, he whispered

"My dear Elfie you need not fear being misunderstood "

Fleda started, and looked up to see what he meant. But his face said it so plainly, in its perfect intelligence and sympathy with her, that her barrier of self-command and reserve was all broken down; and hiding her head in her hands upon his breast, she let the pent-up burden upon her heart come forth in a flood of unrestrained tears. She could not help herself. And when she would fain have checked them after the first burst, and bidden them, according to her habit, to wait another time, it was out of her power; for the same kindness and tenderness that had set them a-flowing, perhaps witting of her intent, effectually hindered its execution. He did not say a single word, but now and then a soft touch of his hand, or of his lips upon her brow, in its expressive tenderness, would unnerve all her resolution, and oblige her to have no reserve that time, at least in letting her secret thoughts and feelings be known, as far as tears could tell them. She wept, at first in spite of herself, and afterwards in the very luxury of indulged feeling; till she was as quiet as a child, and the weight of oppression was all gone. Mr. Carleton did not move, nor speak, till she did.

"I never knew before how good you were, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, raising her head, at length, as soon as she dared, but still held fast by that kind arm.

"What new light have you got on the subject?" said he, smiling.

"Why," said Fleda, trying as hard as ever did sunshine to scatter the remnants of a cloud it was a bright cloud too, by this time "I have always heard that men cannot endure the sight of a woman's tears."

"You shall give me a reward, then, Elfie."

"What reward?" said Elfie.

"Promise me that you will shed them nowhere else."

"Nowhere else?"

"But here in my arms."

"I don't feel like crying any more now," said Fleda, evasively; "at least," for drops were falling rather fast again "not sorrowfully."

"Promise me, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, after a pause.

But Fleda hesitated still, and looked dubious.

"Come!" he said, smiling "you know you promised a little while ago that you would have a particular regard to my wishes."

Fleda's cheeks answered that appeal with sufficient brightness, but she looked down, and said, demurely

"I am sure one of your wishes is, that I should not say anything rashly."

"Well?"

"One cannot answer for such wilful things as tears."

"And for such wilful things as men?" said he, smiling.

But Fleda was silent.

"Then I will alter the form of my demand. Promise me that no shadow of anything shall come over your spirit that you do not let me either share or remove."

There was no trifling in the tone, full of gentleness as it was; there could be no evading its requisition. But the promise demanded was a grave one. Fleda was half afraid to make it. She looked up, in the very way he had seen her do when a child, to find a warrant for her words before she uttered them. But the full, clear, steadfast eye into which she looked for two seconds, authorised as well as required the promise; and hiding her face again on his breast, Fleda gave it, amid a gush of tears, every one of which was illumined with heart-sunshine.

THE END.